Montana--Missouri River, Little Blackfoot River, Upper Clark Fork

Fly Fishing the West
Vol. 21, Issue 1
September 8-9, 2010
Missouri River above Craig, Montana
Upper Clark Fork River at Warm Springs
Little Blackfoot River near Drummond

The highlight of this trip was mainly to be floating the Missouri River, as suggested by Trent, my nephew, who lives in the area. All I could think of was, “OK, he is going to take us on, ‘…a Missouri boat ride…’”. Would it be anything like the one in the clip?--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2V9E5bp3dg . It turned out to be a great trip fortunately without the help of the outlaw--- Josey Wales.
DAY 1, Tuesday, September 7, 2010—Steve Nancy, and I drove from Salt Lake City, Utah to Elliston, Montana (near Helena, Montana). We stopped in Rexburg, Idaho for lunch and to drop off Nancy and visit son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter in college there. Steve and I arrived in Elliston, Montana about 5 pm. Checked into Last Chance Motel. Met Trent (nephew) at his home in Elliston.

DAY 2, Wednesday, September 8, 2010—Trent, Steve and I drove to Craig, Montana (through Helena) at 9:20 am and rented a drift boat at a fly shop located right on the Missouri River. We drove upstream about 6 miles and launched just below the Holter Reservoir Dam. (We were delayed about 35 minutes at the boat launch, see Miscellaneous Information #2 below.) We finally were fishing at about 11:30 am. The Missouri River is large, wide and flat with no real riffles or white water. We first went to the middle of the stream as close to the large dam as allowed. (There is a cable string across the river about 60 yards below the spillway that marks where boats may go.) We set anchor and fished (nymphing on the bottom) there for about 40 minutes. Trent caught a 19” rainbow on his third cast using a red size 12 San Juan worm. Steve then caught an 18” rainbow on what Trent called a ‘flash bug’, size 18. There were about 5 fishermen (wading along the shore) and 4-5 drift boats in this area of the river. Several of the shore fishermen (as well as boat fishermen) on both sides of the river had fish on. We then started to float down the river, with and passing other drift boats and waders through about ½ mile. Someone (in other boats or wading) along the way always had a fish on the line. One guide told us to try a small ‘zebra midge’ nymphing as that was what they seemed to be taking. We had several strikes in this area and I caught a 10” rainbow on a size 18 flashback midge. Leaving this area we began to encounter a lot of seagrass (gently swaying to and fro in the current) in the bottom of the river almost everywhere. The fishermen in either boats or wading thinned out as well. As we floated down Trent tried to find grass-free areas (usually deep). We caught 2 more small rainbows and a whitefish on the float down. Getting down near the end of the float we encountered some fishermen. One boat caught a nice brown maybe 20” long. A fisherman wading caught several fish as we passed by. We docked at the fly shop next to a concrete bridge over the river at about 7:30 pm. This was a great trip down a great river. We saw rocky mountain goats, pelicans, and muskrats along the way. The landscape was beautiful and the weather was warm and cooperative (we encountered a few drops of rain near the end of the trip.) Trent did a great job as our guide.

DAY 3, Thursday, September 9, 2010—Wednesday night we encountered Montana’s ‘Big Sky’ reputation with big thunder, lightning and heavy pouring rain. In the morning the rain had subsided to intermittent which was with us the whole day. At about 9:30 am we drove to Warm Springs which is fed by settling ponds and feeding streams making up the Upper Clark Fork River. We parked in a fisherman access parking area and hiked to the stream coming out of a small spillway. We fished the spillway and downstream for about ½ mile. Steve and Trent each caught small rainbows out of the spillway nymphing. I went downstream and caught two small browns (about 8-10”) by trailing a size 18 flashback midge off of a size 16 Griffith’s gnat with no weighs or strike indicator. This was necessary to avoid the seagrass growing almost everywhere in the bottom of the stream.

In the afternoon we drove from the confluence of the Little Blackfoot River and the Clark Fork River upstream on the Little Blackfoot about 2 miles, then parked by the side of the road and hiked down to the stream over a barbed wire fence and across railroad tracks. We fished the stream from here downstream about a mile then hiked back to the truck. At the first hole we caught about six mountain whitefish (from 13” to 15”) nymphing with small flies. I caught several on both a size 18 flashback midge and a size 16 pink sow bug (Tyson tied). We had several on below but landed none. At the last hole I saw what looked like an adult caddis fly in the water (below the surface), so I put a size 12 dry caddis fly on the nymphing rig and had a fish on immediately. It was on for about 8 seconds then flipped the hook. I assume it was a trout because I do not think a whitefish would take such a large fly, but who knows….

We returned back to Trent’s home for lunch about 4 pm and did not fish any more that day as the rain had picked up considerably.

Day 4, Friday, September 10, 2010—We left Elliston at about 8 am, stopped in Rexburg to pick up Nancy, have lunch, and returned to Salt Lake about 4:30 pm.

Other Miscellaneous Information/Observations:
1. The drift boat cost $100 to rent for the day. It was a nice boat with swivel chairs in the front and back.

2. At the Holter Reservoir Dam boat launch we met two fishermen with a boat as well but they had locked the keys to their SUV (GMC Envoy) in the van. The sheriff had no time to drive out to help and a locksmith from Helena would take 3-4 hours and cost $235 to open it. They were going to break out a window, however, Trent looked at it and with two wires taped together was able to unlock it in about ½ hour. The feshermen were very grateful and wanted to take us to dinner. They ask Trent for his card (thinking he was a guide.) This event was interesting because I locked the keys in our van at the motel the night before. Fortunately, I was able to find a spare key I had attached to the back bumper a number of years ago. On Thursday morning Steve’s wife called from Salt Lake and had locked her keys in their car. Steve inadvertently had the extra set of keys with him in Montana, so she ended up calling the police, who were able to unlock it in about 30 seconds.

3. Along the Missouri River we saw several young Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep, a flock of Pelicans on the river and muskrats along the shore.

4. Non-resident Montana fishing license for 2010 was $15 (plus $5 for a conservation stamp) for a 2-day fishing license. The conservation stamp is good for 1 year. The option for non-resident fishing 2-day or 10-day license.