COLUMN: Challenge to fish six diverse locations nearly met | Sports

I spent the last week in Montana as a dare to a Facebook challenge that came across one of my feeds having to do with fly fishing. The challenge was to fish a minimum six of seven days of the week somewhere other than in familiar local waters. Since I had to be in Missoula last Thursday through Saturday for an Orvis Outfitter and Guide Rendezvous anyway, I accepted the challenge enthusiastically. I asked my brother-in-law to join the fun which he gleefully accepted. Plans were made to begin fishing Monday and hit different rivers or streams in Montana on the way to Missoula, then complete the challenge around Missoula which is well known for its trout fisheries found in the Clark Fork of the Columbia, Blackfoot, Bitterroot and Flathead river systems.

Monday was the shortest fishing day because I had to make it to Craig, Mont., by 6 p.m to get ready for a full-day float trip Tuesday on the Missouri River. To make sure my time Monday was productive, the Yellowstone River just outside Livingston, Mont., provides some easy access to the Yellowstone. We fished at the perfect time of day – 11 a.m.-2 p.m. – to catch some Skwalla stonefly action, some blue-wing olives and March browns before piling my gear and myself back into my gray, galloping Trout Mobile and hustling up to Three Forks, then taking the road through Townsend to Helena to my final destination in Craig. Whitefish count when a challenge has been accepted. Each of us caught too many of those while trying to put a brown or rainbow or Yellowstone cutthroat in our nets in a short amount of time. Thankfully, we did manage to land several rainbows and a couple of rainbow/cutthroat hybrids apiece the few hours we had Monday.

Tuesday was not a good day to float. Temperatures in Craig that morning were below freezing and there was a chasing west wind blowing a steady 20-25 mph down the mighty Missouri. Not to be intimidated by wind or weather, our guide, Matt, who works through the Cross Current Fly Shop in Craig, was very helpful in putting the two of us on trout all day. We knew we were not going to see much in the way of aquatic or terrestrial insect action on the surface because of the wind. We accepted the fact that we would be fishing nymphs below a strike indicator as long as the wind was blowing at a 20 mph velocity.

The day was outstanding. We were glad we hadn’t cancelled our plans and took the float trip. Lots of rainbows and browns were placed into Matt’s net throughout the day. By lots, I would guess the two of us fishing easily caught two dozen or more trout apiece. Whitefish were also part of the catch, but the numbers of those were much fewer than the day before on the Yellowstone River. All, including Matt, were happy with the day when we pulled off the river around 5:30 p.m. After leaving Craig, we hustled down I-15 to Butte for the night. Plans were to head through Anaconda on Highway 1, then fish the upper section of Rock Creek on Wednesday before moving on to Missoula for Wednesday night and the rest of our week.

Snow and slush were on I-90 from Butte to Anaconda. Highway 1 early Wednesday morning, or Day Three, that ran through westward through Anaconda was “greasy and slick” until we drove past Georgetown Lake. Once we dropped off the high plateau there, we dropped into Flint Creek Valley where the road was dry, then over another pass and, finally, into upper Rock Creek which is a dirt and rough road for miles until we finally found a turnout that wasn’t marked private property or no trespassing.

The weather was still raw and cold mid-morning upon our arrival. However, there was no wind and we had packed the gear to keep all but our noses and fingers warm while fishing. We were on the water and fishing by 10 a.m. Reports from fly shops in the vicinity of Rock Creek had reported good hatches of the same insects we had seen on the Yellowstone River Monday. We began with a Skwalla (an early spring stonefly found in the Cody area and western Rockies) dry fly pattern and dropped a size 14 Frenchie jig nymph with an orange hot spot 30 inches below that. Of course, I volunteered to fish the harder-to-get-to section of Rock Creek, which means I had to cross that slippery, tough-wading, rock-filled stream bottom to get to the other side while my brother-in-law wisely chose to fish the roadside.

My side of the creek fished better early on. Brown trout, rainbows and Westslope cutthroat hit the bead head steadily through the first deep run. When a nice brown trout of 15 inches ate my Skwalla dry fly around noon, we knew the two of us were finally going to have a dry fly day. We cut off the nymph dropper and replaced that with a dry fly. I chose a March brown parachute while my bro-in-law chose a smaller blue-winged olive parachute. We had great success on dry flies the rest of the day before we called it quits around 4:40 p.m., which was also when the action slowed down.

Two hours of rattling our teeth and bouncing down the Rock Creek road occurred before we finally hit some pavement about six miles from I-90. Once on that high-speed thorofare, we scooted the rest of the way to Missoula at 80 mph to arrive at our hotel around 7 p.m. If Christmas can come twice a year, I believe it safe to say, the two us had enjoyed a great gift on Rock Creek. We were very excited to see if the next couple of days could get better.

Thursday, Day Four, was cold and raining with snow squalls forecast to keep the day interesting. Our guide picked the two of us up at our hotel around 8 a.m. We had an hour’s drive west of Missoula before we would launch for another float trip. This time, our destination was a 14-mile stretch of the Clark Fork of the Columbia River near Superior. Our guide didn’t seem all that enthusiastic at first launch, but he quickly changed his attitude as the trout in the Clark Fork began to eat his version of a Skwalla dry fly. Once more, we caught rainbow trout, cutbow hybrids and Westslope cutthroat all day while enduring rain and snow squalls interspersed with partly cloudy skies. Aside from not having the guide’s truck and boat trailer at the takeout, this day rivaled any we had experienced since leaving Cody. So far, so good.

Friday was the only day when the weather actually cooperated. We escaped our Orvis meeting about noon and hustled back to Rock Creek to fish the lower portion we could only drool over and drive by on our fishing day there Wednesday. Again, our luck held as the trout eagerly ate our Skwalla or March Brown dry fly offerings. We had a dinner meeting planned for 7 that evening. Unfortunately, we didn’t pull off Rock Creek until it was too late to make the dinner. Thank goodness, the meeting was comprised of fly fishing guys and gals just like us, so we were forgiven at breakfast Saturday morning.

Saturday, as you know, was a wet, cold and snowy day. We packed up and left Missoula with the intention of fishing the Boulder River outside of Butte. If that didn’t pan out, we were going to hit the Stillwater River near Absarokee or Nye, a bit closer to home. We couldn’t get up the road to the Boulder due to snow accumulation. Disappointed, we pointed the Trout Mobile eastward toward Columbus and the road leading to the Stillwater. Finally there at 2 p.m., we encountered a wind that made the one on the Missouri River on Tuesday feel like a breeze. There were also significant amounts of snow the closer to Absarokee we came.

We almost completed our challenge with flying colors. Sadly, were it not for the weather the last day of our trip, we could have checked six days off the calendar and celebrated the achievement in due style. As it were, we still managed to have five wonderful days fishing different waters throughout a state that borders Wyoming, but a state that is also difficult to travel to when we have such fine fishing so close to Cody. Maybe this fall as the tourism season winds down, the two of us can take on another fishing challenge and see if we can take that one through to completion. I can guarantee you that we will give it our very best the entire time.