Western Montana: Bitterroot River

As I look out on the waters and the mountains and the big sky surrounding me in western Montana, the same ones so eloquently portrayed and described in Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It, I can't help but feel something special is going on. Out here, human life is slowed down, and fishing life is sped up. To paint an example, I am writing from the small town of Melrose on the shores of the Big Hole River, a town consisting of one motel, one bar/restaurant, and two fly shops. Even the bartender I met tonight said he has been here for just six weeks, having up and moved here for the summer to fish, because last summer he met the owner of the bar during his own fishing trip and she gave him a job here this summer.

Anyways, I want to keep this excerpt about the Bitterroot River and our experience with the guides provided to us by Bill Abbot's service there. We flew into Missoula on Tuesday morning and got into the town of Hamilton where we stayed the first three nights by mid afternoon. Bill, who came highly recommended to us by our more experienced (some might say expert) fly fishing friends, Top Prusak and Jack Hess, picked us up from the airport and drove us an hour south to Hamilton. He showed us around town and took us down to the river for a quick view before dropping us off at our motel for the night. But with a few hours of daylight left, my dad and I made our way over to the river for a few hours before calling it a night, and while we both had out share of hits, he landed the only one of the evening, a nice 16 inch cutthroat.

The next morning, our guide Jeff picked us up at 8:30 and we drove about 30 minutes south to the put in of Appleberry on the West Fork of the Bitterroot. On our way, we saw our first creature of the trip, a black moose, hanging by the side of the dirt road a couple miles below our put-in spot. The stretch of river from Appleberry down to our take-out of Trapper's Creek Job Corp has a very scenic canyon-like personality. Cutthroats, a lot like brook trout, are not especially picky eaters, and the characteristics of this stretch of the river gave us a great opportunity to hook into a good share of fish on dry flies, almost exclusively on a pattern called the Purple Haze (which is basically an Adams tied with a purple body), although we caught a few on gold stimulators and caddis. Jeff took good care of us all day (it's amazing how all these guides can tie knots so quickly and change flies like it's no effort at all). Near the beginning of the float, Jeff pointed out a small dark eddy along a riffly bend and told me to make a cast there since I was in the front of the boat. Sure enough, after a good cast in there if I may say so, I hooked into a beautiful 16 inch Cut. From there, all the jokes about being in the front of the boat giving you a big advantage ensued. In all, we both caught close to 40-50 fish that day, working out to be a fantastic first day of fishing.

The following morning our guide Wes McCay picked us up and we floated the main stem of the Bitterroot. This section has a completely different personality, filled with bigger, deep pools and channels in an open valley, defined by panoramic vistas and white rock shores. As such, Wes suited us up with nymphing rigs to start the morning and for most of the day. However, we did catch a good few on dries as well. This section holds slightly bigger fish, and while neither of us caught the big ones I think Wes was hoping we'd catch, we did get a few in the net that pushed the 16 inch range. The most successful patterns for our rigs were a black stone paired with a red copper john dropper. Interestingly, while I was fishing an orange stimulator dry fly at one point, I caught a huge 20 inch Northern Pike Minnow, which is not the prettiest fish but is apparently fairly scarce and very carnivorous and eats just about anything it can. Again, we had another very good day of fishing.

On our third and last day on the Bitterroot, we again has Jeff as our guide. He took us up to the West Fork again, this time putting in at the place we took out two days prior. Saving the best for last, this was our best day on the Bitterroot. We literally caught fish all day long, especially during a torrid golden stonefly hatch that took off around noon and lasted for almost two hours. The hatch was so thick that as the bugs were crawling on my skin and down my shirt and into every crevice of my fanny pack, I tried to swipe a few off my neck and accidentally hit my sunglasses into the river, never to be found again. During this time you could cast big bushy imitations to rising fish literally 5 feet away and catch big cutthroats. The biggest one I caught was nearly 18 inches, which is great for a Cut, but we both caught several in the 15-16 inch range consistently. This stretch of the river also has a certain canyon-like feel to it, but it opens up a bit more and provided some great long riffle pools perfect for getting wading.

Our experience on the Bitterroot River, and with Bill Abbot's guide service, was nothing short of awesome. We caught a ton of fish and the scenery was something special to behold. Anyone planning to come to Montana to fish would do well to give the Bitterroot some serious consideration.