For this year's gathering of the guys in my family fly fishing trip we chose to stay a few days in the upper forks section of a western Montana stream. Our cabin was just a mile from the ranch/compound where the series "Yellowstone" is filmed. We saw Kevin Costner on the street in the small town next door, but it was unfortunately only a cardboard cutout version of him. Equally unfortunately, with water levels around 60% of average this year, a heat wave with temps running just shy of 100 degrees even that far up the B' Valley, smoky skies from fires down the valley and hoot owl shutdowns in the main stem, the fishing quality was also only a cardboard cutout of what it has been in the past. I spent the time wet wading and pouring cold stream water over my head and shoulders to keep cool. Even so, we scratched out a handful of fish each day, saw the occasional half-hearted rise and managed two fish of notable size (17-18") over the three days' fishing. The East Fork was nearly unfishable it was so low this year. The West Fork was somewhat better due to its larger size and water coming from a dam upstream. But access on the West Fork always strikes me as a bit few and far between...just enough to keep us happy, but not ideal for me. If you joined the many guided floaters on the river you would see a lot more water than we found by foot access.
The fish were mostly interested in #16 purple haze dries and #16 black perdigons.
We saw bighorn sheep, a moose along the road in town, a herd of elk, a mink, lots of deer and more old pickup trucks and cowboy hats than we could count.
I'm hoping for better snowpack years and a rebound in the quality and quantity of trout fishing in that area in the future.
The fish were mostly interested in #16 purple haze dries and #16 black perdigons.
We saw bighorn sheep, a moose along the road in town, a herd of elk, a mink, lots of deer and more old pickup trucks and cowboy hats than we could count.
I'm hoping for better snowpack years and a rebound in the quality and quantity of trout fishing in that area in the future.
