August

I stayed there two days, mostly because of the rain and nastiness, munching on a steady diet of granola bars, brook trout, and dark beer. I amused myself with fishing, with tying flies, taking pictures, and reading Tom Holt’s guides on fishing Montana. And I settled on a plan- a quasi-remote, difficult to access river in southwest Montana which held one of the last vestiges of the state’s native grayling.

I took off towards Dillon and stopped in at the first fly shop I saw, unspectacular. And the clerk seemed incredulous at my plan, as though I had my work cut out for me. I’m one of those folks who are inspired by the doubters, so this made me all the more inclined to succeed.

I bought my tippet and some fly-tying materials, then went by a produce stand and picked up some stuff from a very bored guy in his late teens. And I was off.

Sixty miles down a gravel road in backcountry Montana, in a four door Saturn, is a bit of a harrowing experience. That the entire landscape is vacant of anything except a few cows and abandoned homesteads is altogether lonely.

I finally got where I wanted to be. The river was small, no wider than ten feet in many places. The riffles were thin, only a few inches of water covered the fine gravel so densely packed you’d think it was pavement. Those thin riffles, though, they dumped into surprisingly deep pools and slots, which invariably held my quarry. Every spot of land was covered in dense willows, and at any moment you’d expect a big pissed off moose, or bear.

I tied on a caddis dry and took two casts, revelling in the silence and the loneliness, knowing I was the only person on the stream for miles around, that I was completely and utterly alone. Then a black 4x4 barreled down the gravel road and parked about fifty yards downstream. Four sports piled out and rigged up. They looked like real tools, to boot. I got out and crossed over to the next bend of the meadow pool, and began heading upstream.

The first grayling I hooked was big. At least it seemed big. It seemed around fourteen inches. I was nymphing, and all I saw was a bolt, a flash of silver and olive. I set the hook, and felt the resistance, saw another flash, and then emptiness. I was alone again. She left me.

I switched back to the caddis. Fish were feeding along the high cutbank across the stream. So close to the bank, they seemed to be materializing directly out of the soil. I drifted through, the fly was taken, and I waited a moment before setting the hook. This time it held, and I brought to hand a dainty seven-inch grayling.

I caught three or four more, the biggest around ten inches. Missed another three or four. I never did wind up seeing the other sports, but I had my fun. I kept on down the road, looking for a decent camping spot.

I found one, at the edge of a smallish lake, maybe fifteen acres or so, and loaded with freshly-stocked rainbows. It was a smorgasbord- as soon as I got out of my car I noticed an otter dipping between the rings of rising fish, foundering himself on the dumb little stockers. Two terns were circling and diving overhead- pretty birds which I hadn’t really seen before, and after hearing the noise they make, never care to see again. A heron in a backwater spearing innocent little trout. It was nature, it was life- shit dies.

I decided to forgo the tent and instead just sleep in the car, it’d give me an edge to get up early in the morning and head towards West Yellowstone, where there were fly shops and showers and people. I was starting to miss people, and being all alone on a vast landscape, literally miles from anyone, from anything, can get profoundly lonely.

I strung up my rod with a small little dry fly, hoping to make some new friends. I took a couple casts, caught a brace of rainbows about seven inches long, before the damned dark 4x4 came barreling down the gravel road again. Its lights hit me, it swung over into the grassy area where I had parked my car, and stopped up alongside it.

His lights were on longer than I thought they should be. But eventually he stepped out, a skinny dark-haired man in camouflage cargo shorts. He ambled down with a fly rod to the lake and began fishing about eighty yards to my right. He lit a cigarette.

He caught three or four in the time it took me to catch two. Then I caught another, and he caught two. Then I caught one, then he caught two more. Then I caught two or three in an instant, and he caught one or two more.

“Zee feesh are all smaull.” He had said, loud enough I could hear them, though it didn’t seem he was talking to anyone but himself. I noted the accent.

“Yeah,” I responded. “I haven’t caught anything bigger than seven or eight inches.”

“When I came two yers ago, I caught many beeg feesh.” He said. “I suppose it wars just stocked.”

I nodded, and we both continued to catch fish. It went on like that until it was too dark to see my fly, and all I could see of him was a faint gray outline amongst the water, and a bright red ember. We hadn’t talked for forty minutes or more, and I packed it in and went back to the car. When I got to the bank, he said “Zid you szee zee otuh?”

“Pardon?”

“Zee otuh, zid you szee it?”

“The what?”

“Zee otuh.”

I paused, thinking, trying to decipher what the fuck he was talking about.

“Oh! The OTTER,” I exclaimed. “Yes, yes, I did see the otter, it was chasing fish around as I hooked them.”

“Mine too, it was funny.” That’s all we said, me and my strange French friend.

August

My wild hare sent me over the mountains to the Big Hole valley, in a quest to take a look at Idaho, catch some outsize brook trout, and the chance at a Montana grayling. A fish nerd’s dream.

It was early, and it was raining. I climbed up over the mountains and into Idaho, pelted with ice and snow. Snow. In August. I was ten times higher than home, and it was unreal. I got out, snapped a few photos of Idaho and the snow, and was on my way.



I came down and stopped at the Big Hole National Battlefield long enough to snap a few pictures and watch the documentary. It was definitely a sobering experience, and I sure felt like shit afterwards. I walked around a bit in the cold and the rain, and noticed there was a fishing access right there in the park. Sort of incongruous, I thought…

Anyway, took a right and headed through the big, wide, wet, swampy Big Hole valley, seeing the river, really no more than a creek at this point, winding around lazily every now and again. I stopped at a couple bridges to check things out, the water was covering the entire channel, and many of the bridges had barbed wire strung along them to boot. I decided not to chance it.

Stopped in at Jackson, Montana and got a plate of BNG at the bar. Heads turned when I walked in. I smelled, too. But the BNG was good, and the waitress/bartender/cook was nice.

Stopped a couple different places and fished half-heartedly, more to say I had fished the Big Hole than to fish it seriously, honestly, and expect to raise fish. The water was up a fair bit and I felt sketchy about the state’s stream access laws, figuring my best route would be to head up a tributary into the National Forest, where I’d be safe from angry landowners.

So I did that, and wound up on a pretty little meadow brook trout stream, loaded to the gills with fish. Nothing really huge, a couple pushing twelve and thirteen inches, but there were a lot of them, and it was a blast casting to and catching dumb, innocent little fish again. It was rainy, and the whole place had a primordial, swampy sort of feel to it, as though at any moment Sasquatch would pop out of the bushes or I’d be ambushed by natives. And it was quiet- deathly, beautifully quiet.

I went further up the road and made camp at a Forest Service campground near a pretty, weedy lake. It was raining. I started a fire and cooked my trout, drank from my growler of Blacksmith, and read in my tent, plotting what I should do next.

I had really accomplished all I had set out to do, which wasn’t saying much. I wanted to catch Yellowstone and west-slope cutthroat, check. I had wanted to see Red Lodge, visit some breweries, and do some touristy things, check. I had yet to catch a grayling, which was the last thing I felt I must do. So I plotted.

August

I got up fairly early the next morning, in the rain, and ate breakfast in town, a place for sale by a somewhat indifferent woman and an adorable four year old Mexican kid. Good huevos, too. And chocolate milk.

I headed over to the West Fork of the Bitterroot, the place I was supposed to be the night before. It had rained off and on all night, but for now had cleared up. I stayed on the lower part of the river until it began raining heavily, then packed it in. Fishing was dismal, no rises or hits, and I kept smelling something rotten deep in the willow thickets behind me, making me nervous. Ah well.
















I drove through the rain over to the East Fork, where I was planning to spend the night at another Forest Service campground. I worked my way upstream in the occasional rain, catching a mix of browns, rainbows, and cuttbows. It was a pretty river, but it could be better- it’s had more than its fair share of damage due to irrigators. It was fun though, biggest I caught was a twelve-inch cuttbow. Cracklebacks and other prospecting-type dry flies were the ticket.

The campground was gorgeous and uncrowded, and the gatekeeper awfully nice, if not a bit stoned. It rained. A lot. It was fun.

August

My car made it safely, without incident, down the Skalkaho Pass and into Hamilton. Satisfied, I stopped in Hamilton, at the first fly shop I came across. It had only been open for three or four weeks, the owners, a couple with a child of three or four years, were still unpacking gear.

They were incredibly friendly and approachable, and I talked with them at good length about fishing, fly shops, and other business. I sincerely hope they do very well, they were so absolutely nice and genuine. At one point I even thought about asking about a guiding job, a la A Good Life Wasted figuring I could put at least someone onto fish on the Bitterroot. I didn’t though, and was soon off on my way.

I needed an adapter for my car, to power the digital camera battery and some of the other toys I had to play with. Initially I just wanted to pop into a local Radio Shack and get all I required, but it was soon apparent this was not possible, and a trip to Missoula was necessary. No matter, I figured this would fulfill the second leg of my somewhat-abortive brewery tour, being able to hit the Bayern and Great Northern Breweries in Missoula, as well as check out Blacksmith Brewery in Stevensville and Bitterroot Brewery back in Hamilton.

So I headed north, to Missoula, and stopped in at the Mall to get a power converter. That done, I wandered around downtown until the breweries opened, then made my way to the Bayern Brewery. It was fun, although the server was a bit cold (perhaps because I was obviously a smelly tourist, and alone), although I got a great sample of their brew. From there I went up to the Great Northern Brewery and had a couple samples, bought a few trinkets, and was on my way to Stevensville.



I got to Blacksmith Brewery a bit before last call, and had about the same trouble finding it as finding all the other breweries I’d tried to locate in Montana. The important part was that I succeeded, and I did have a couple delicious beers there, as well as taking home a growler.





From there I made it to Hamilton and the Bitterroot Brewery, where the delightful pink-haired bartender informed me it was too late to grab a beer, but that she could fill growlers and bottles for me. I got a growler of Brown ale, and two bottles, one of the Sawtooth Ale and one of the Porter, then continued on south.

I intended to make it to the West Fork of the Bitterroot River, but fell short and wound up grabbing a motel room in Sula. It was the happiest I’ve ever been to see a warm, dry, place, and the owners, were unbelievably nice. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend it. They were welcoming and friendly. I drank a bottle, tied some flies, watched television, and crashed.

August

I elected to sleep outside, mostly because I was delighted to have caught what seemed to be native, purebred Westslope cutthroats from a stream smaller than the width of the room from which I’m writing this. A third the width, really. It was neat. But I got rained on. C’est la vie.

I tied some flies, then packed up and headed west towards Hamilton. I had driven about two miles down a little gravel road to get here, and going back out towards the highway in the fog, I came across what appeared to be a paint horse foal laying in the road. I got right up to it, and instead it was a massive Saint Bernard, literally taking up half the road, and laying square in the middle, making it impossible to pass. So I pulled my car over, got out, and fed it the remainders of the rainbow I had for dinner the night before. I’m not entirely sure that sort of thing is kosher in Montana, but the dog sure seemed to enjoy it; I made a new friend out of the deal, and got him to leave the road.

I pulled over at a random campground and caught a half dozen browns from four to ten inches in length, then worked my way up the west fork of Rock Creek, catching small cutthroats and cuttbow hybrids, nothing bigger than ten inches, but a lot of fun. I really was interested in catching a small bull trout, but I doubt I was throwing the right flies to target those fish. It was a pretty stream, and I had it all to myself.

I did pull off near the saddle of the ridge at some lake, just for shits and giggles, and because I had yet to fish a lake. It was gorgeous, a dark gem set in the middle of a verdant green meadow. Or so I thought. I should’ve known by the moose tracks.

I walked out onto the thing, in sandals. I say onto because it turned out to be a quaking bog- ringed with a thick mat of sphagnum moss which trembled and sank when you walked upon it. Sometimes it only sank three inches, other times it sank a foot or more. In the back of my mind I was worried about the moment it gave through completely- thinking of arctic explorers and others who have been lost in ice which collapsed beneath them, and they couldn’t find the hole they fell through. I thought back to a National Geographic article I had read when I was younger, about mummified men the had found in peat bogs in Scotland, and wondered if this could perhaps be my fate…

But there were trout dimpling everywhere, so I stupidly carried on. And nothing awful happened- I just caught one dumb stocker west slope cutthroat after another. Foam ants, damselflies, caddis, it didn’t’ particularly matter- if it floated, eventually something would hit it. I made a game out of it, watching where fish rose and casting to where I expected them to rise next. It may have worked, I don’t know, but in an hour or so I must have caught at least twenty fish, none over ten inches. It was dumb fun.

August

Finally, I hatched a plan. It had very little to do with fishing, though. Mostly beer and goofing off, really. More goofing off than fishing.

There are many gorgeous things in the west: the mountains, the valleys, the meadows; the elk, deer, bears, moose, and other wildlife, but all that pales to me in comparison to the fishing, and to the drink. The west is unparalleled in its number of microbreweries, and a great beer is another passion of mine. Places like Livingston, Bozeman, even Missoula and West Yellowstone, seem to gravitate anglers and assholes, and have always seemed a bit intimidating to me. I’d much rather pursue my sport without all the douchebaggery somewhere a bit off the beaten path, as opposed to somewhere everyone and their mother ventures to. But I don’t mind watching the show from time to time, and taking a break to replenish the soul and amuse ones’ self at the expense of others is always a good idea, particularly with a delicious brew in hand..

From Absarokee, I’d hop up onto I-90 and head west towards Livingston, where I would visit the Neptune Brewery, The Fly Fishing Federation Museum, and Dan Bailey’s headquarters. Mostly just to drink and be a tourist. From there, I would head to Bozeman, check out the fly shops, the college, the Bozeman Brewery and the Montana Ale Works. From there, if I could make it, I would be able to hop to Belgrade and hit the Madison River Brewing Company, and then on to Butte and hit their brewery. Stop and fish some in the Rock Creek Drainage, then on over the Divide to the Bitterroot drainage, and breweries in Hamilton and Stevensville. But that was still at least a day away, and up for further investigation.


Montana has funny beer laws. Like a brewery, which doesn’t serve food, can only serve their brew from 4 until 8 pm. I did not know this, so when I arrived in Livingston, at Neptune’s Brewery, at 11 in the morning, it was closed.

I also did not know the Federation of Fly Fishers had closed their museum back in March. So I stood outside the old building and took some pictures and peeked through the windows and doors to see if I could spot any neat, run-down exhibits. I didn’t. All I could do was take a picture of this neon sign.

Next on the list of things to see in Livingston was the Fly Fishing Federation's Museum of Fly Fishing. I had checked it out on Google, and it seemed like a nice place to bum around for a couple hours, looking at exhibits and such.

But the museum was closed. It had been closed since March. I did find the building, though, an old school, kind of neat looking, with a big FFF sign out front. It was kind of neat, and to prevent myself from feeling defeated, I snapped a couple photos.








I did, however, find Dan Bailey’s. It was neat, but not as relavatory as I supposed. Just a big fly shop with a few rather cool things in it. I suppose I expected it to be more museum-like.

So I wandered around downtown Livingston, checking out art galleries and fly shops, bars and restaurants. I eventually wandered into The Sport, an establishment which apparently has been there for a century, and which, more importantly, had sixteen different beers on tap, including a few from the Neptune Brewery. I figured that counted, so ordered a Philly Steak and a few brews. Delicious, and the owner and the waitress were both fun.






























From there, I made it to Bozeman, checked out the downtown area, as well as a few fly shops. Definitely liked Livingston over Bozeman. And Montana breweries are insanely difficult to find. I wandered around trying to find both the Bozeman Brewery and the Montana Ale Works. I did find the Ale Works, but it seemed like an awfully corporate deal, so I bowed out.

There were a couple neat fly shops and other businesses downtown, it’s nice to see something other than a Wal-Mart dominating the business-cape. It was alright, but I headed on west to Belgrade, and spent two hours looking for the Madison River Brewery. I found the Madison River, and I found the Gallatin River. I did not find the brewery. I even found the strip-mall area where I suppose the brewery was tucked away. I did not, however, find the brewery, ever. So I moved on to Butte.

I did find the Butte Brewery, after passing it three times. The first time I think they caught on I was looking for it, because I drew a crowd of three or four people. It was basically an old garage, an industrial outfit in which they put the wort pots and some hardwood booths. It was a neat deal, piles of sacks of barley and hops seemingly scattered about, and the bartender/brew master was very open about his fishing spots, which was a definite bonus. I had two beers and bought a couple stickers before heading over to the rock creek drainage and crashing on a small Forest Service campground there.

It was nice, deep in the woods amongst massive pine trees. a little stream, no wider than ten feet in most places, ran along the front of it. I still had about two hours of daylight, so I figured it was necessary to prospect the water.

About a hundred yards downstream of the campground were a few pools, each about the size of two parking spaces side-by-side. I tossed in a trude and a fish rose, smashing the fly. A decent, delightful, strong westslope cutthroat. I caught six, enjoying the tiny stream and the surprisingly large fish it contained. This is how a native fishery should be.

August

I took Highway 212- the Beartooth Highway, up to Red Lodge. Not a spectacular fishing highway, but you go through the Beartooth Plateau, which has some great fishing and gorgeous scenery. A great deal of it was self-serving- in two weeks I was to pick my friends up at the airport in Billings, and I needed to determine whether it was faster getting there from Cooke City through Yellowstone and Gardiner, or from Cooke City through Red Lodge to Billings.

The roadtrip was gorgeous, and I can see why it’s frequented by so many bikers. One of the few times I’ve wished I owned a motorcycle. And Red Lodge doesn’t seem to rate high on the destination agendas of many anglers, but it seemed a worthwhile venture- Rock Creek, Clark Fork of the Yellowstone, Rosebud Creek and the Stillwater River- that’s enough water for me.

I stopped in Red Lodge, which seemed to me one of Montana’s most fun towns- the number of bars per capita is truly outstanding. But it was lunchtime and I was on a mission, so I wound up just getting my Montana license at the local True Value and heading over to the Stillwater River.

I drove up a long gravel road more or less following the river, grasshoppers still smashing against my window and getting stuck in the wiper blades, smearing against the glass as though someone had egged my car. I pulled in at Cliff Swallow fishing access, which had a number of available campgrounds and only two or three groups of others. I soon realized, however, this wasn’t the place I want to be. Investigating the first decent-looking water led to the discovery of three or four trout carcasses and a pile of beer cans. Three girls in their early teens, maybe fourteen or fifteen, were about eighty yards downstream of where I was fishing, horsing around in the water. No big deal, until two of them crossed the river where the third couldn’t. This wouldn’t be a big deal either, except for the third girl breaking down midstream, sobbing and screaming to the other two to come help her cross, stumbling along on the cobble sobbing. I couldn’t help but feel like shit.

I got in my car and drove upstream to the next access. It was quieter, and the water looked better, but I still caught no fish. The wildlife helped soothe that, though. A six point mule deer in the parking lot. Wild turkeys gobbling from the overhanging cliffs. It was a nice place, and I still miss it.

No fish, though.