Last month, I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days fishing Montana’s famous river Flathead with Montanan conservation film maker (The Last Keeper) and friend, Tom Opre. In reality, the Flathead is three distinct rivers with the suitably imaginative names of North, South and Middle Forks.
Our first day was on the South Fork, where we met Ted, who would be our guide for the two days. Montana is a state where being native born carries huge meaning, but Ted was very much the wave of enthusiastic ‘fly bros’ who settle in the ‘big sky state’, living the dream of guiding on its world-class trout rivers.
For our first day, Ted brought his jet boat, a fast-running craft that could operate in shallow waters. It was the only such boat guiding on that part of the river, and would allow us to get into some upper reaches that were relatively unmolested from the long season of tourist anglers.
We motored to the head of the legal boat limit, passing lots of classic fly runs, to anchor in a deep eddying pool below a sharp dogleg in the river. The waters of the Flathead are glacial, and every stone, lie and fish were mesmerizingly visible with the aid of polarising lenses. Once in the middle of this pool, my jaw dropped. We were above two tall pinnacles of rock, which glowed gold in the sun, around which great shoals of trout vortexed in slow motion. I was in a recurring dream I had genuinely had from time to time, where I was fishing crystal clear water where large trout were effortlessly cruising - yet despite all my efforts were unmoved by the ever-more frantically changing offerings.
Our dry flies were picking off aggressive little cutthroat trout in the top water column, but I was enchanted by the big shadows moving below them and soon shunned convention to opt for a sinking fly. Ted opened the lid of a 2ft long case, which proved to be the most expansive fly box I have ever seen. Within, there were a further 16 A4-sized compartment cases all stuffed with flies, with the sort of taxonomic labelling that would make a natural history museum curator proud. An interesting thing to me was the size of some of the dry flies - huge foam creations almost 2” long, complete with comedic rubber legs. These ‘hoppers’ seem garish and unnatural however a short walk along the bank would soon reveal huge black and red flying grasshoppers that were perfectly imitated by the foam monstrosities.
To the consternation of Tom, a self-confessed dry fly snob, I tried a succession of increasingly heavy streamers to hit those target fish but the largest of them still proved elusive. Had I been back home I’d have gone straight to my selection of tungsten Euro nymphing bugs, but such tactics seemed a bit of an anathema Stateside.
Most of the fish we caught were native cutthroat - a trout similar to a rainbow but usually smaller and which thrives in very clean, cold mountain waters. They are particularly vulnerable to pollution but there has also been an introduction of rainbows and browns in many rivers; as we followed the river down we started to hit rainbow-cutthroat hybrids known as ‘cut-bows’, as opposed to genetically pure ‘cutties’.
Returning to small dries, we floated the river down, covering any likely pocket of water and ended the day with a satisfying number of fish.
The next day, an hour’s drive took us to the Middle Fork, high in the mountains, which forms the dividing line between the Glacier National Park and the 1 million acres of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. This was bear country, known for its prevalence of grizzly bear attacks.
For most of the day we were rafting. It is hard to explain the beauty of the river. Even when navigating its more bum-clenching rapids, it was difficult to ignore the array of multicoloured boulders below. For an entire day, we covered every likely riffle and pocket with a mix of dry flies. The cold, fast, infertile waters offer limited aquatic food sources, and a terrestrial offering is rarely refused by these aggressive mountain cutties.
Ted had promised us a challenging day and by the end of our 12-mile drift we were chasing daylight. Our performance on the day seemed to impress our guide, having bagged some great specimens in the lower end of the drift
By the time we returned to the extraction point, light was fading fast in the steep shadows of the Rocky Mountains. I was left to bank fish alone while the guys made the drive upriver to retrieve the other truck. I was to keep an eye on the boat or, as Ted put it, ‘be a sacrificial offering to stop the bears damaging the raft’. As I fished down the pool, my eye was repeatedly drawn to the scrub brush immediately behind me, obvious bear habitat. Rising trout can distract one from all the world’s troubles, although apparently this stops short of the prospect of an unfriendly grizzly. I was glad to have bear spray hanging from my wading belt. For a second I felt like a gunslinger of old with his trusty big iron on his hip, though in reality I do question my ability to summon my inner Jesse James should I suddenly be presented with a 600lb grizzly descending at 30mph.
I casually called out the occasional “hey bear” between casts, mentally rehearsing the instructions on the back of my bear spray. The lights of the truck eventually beckoned, drawing the day to an end. I was left with memories of amazing fishing, breathtaking scenery and that mixture of relief and disappointment that I didn’t get to see my bear.