A summer review: Craig, MT

It seems like only three weeks ago I was headed back out to Montana to work in a town with less than 50 permanent residents, on one of the most productive trout rivers in the United States. Who would have thought that in what seemed like three weeks, three full months flew by. My summer of work in Craig, MT, has now ended.

It was definitely a summer of remembrance. Working at the Trout Shop gave me the opportunity to explore, and most importantly, fish everyday. I had plenty of adventures this summer but also worked a lot. I learned so much about the process of a fly shop, interacting with clients, and helping those clients to have the best fly fishing experience possible.

Working in Craig specifically gave me a whole different view on the small town. The entire existence of the town all comes back to the sport that keeps it alive. With three fly shops, a restaurant, and lodging, Craig Montana is considered to some to be a small fly fishing oasis. But what I realized about Craig was that it's not the shops that make it such an oasis... it's the generous people.

I would like to thank Chris Goodman, Jerry Lappier, Mike Bushly, Karen Lappier, and Lily Goodman for the great experience I had this summer working at The Trout Shop. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I've had in my life.

Goodbye to the Mo

Mountains, Cutties and Bears, Oh My

In the past couple of weeks on the Mo, the fishing has slowed down and the crowds have decreased. Working less has given me time to explore a little bit. I've been hitting some small streams lately and trying to stay off the larger waters. Finding and exploring new waters is always a fun gig, especially if you find that those waters are full of cutties, willing to take almost any attractor dry you choose to throw. 

Small but beautiful

My boss Chris has over 30 years of fly fishing knowledge that he occasionally gives out in small doses. He recently told me of a high mountain lake in the Bob Marshall Wilderness that was full of big Yellowstone cutties. With my camping gear in the car, I headed for the mountains.

It turned out to be one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever been on. The fishing proved to be slow, with most of the fish in the lake being out in the middle.

I haven't seen a bear in Montana since my run in with a black bear on Rattlesnake Creek during my first week of college. Fortunately enough, as I walked down the steps of our front porch near Craig, I found a bear walking about 30 feet from me. It looked at me and continued on its way. I slowly walked to my car, got my camera and watched as the bear walked right up on some high rocks. It sat up there for a few minutes just watching me. Very cool to see. 

It's been a great couple of weeks and work is slowly but surely coming to an end. Garret just arrived in Missoula today from South Carolina as well as Chris Gratton who spent his summer back in Vermont. They both are very excited to be back in Montana again. 

My little sister Ellie and my Mom are headed out west to see me soon. Hopefully I'll get to show them what Montana is all about. My last day of work will be the 23rd, and then it's back to Missoula for good.

MFWP Work Continues

Had another great day with Region 2 fisheries biologist Will and Jerrod on Monday. We met early and headed up to a small Clark Fork tributary to do a depletion. The object of a depletion is to get an estimate of the fish population in a specific section of a stream. Previous estimates had been made on the stream and in the past eight years, restoration work has been done to certain sections to see if it would have any effect on the population.

The process was quite simple (although my last electro-shocking experience did not seem simple at all). We first set up a block net at the bottom end of the section we were going to shock. This prevents any stunned fish from being carried downstream. We then began to make our first pass, working our way upstream through the thick brush. Jerrod was in charge of shocking, while Will used the dip net to collect the stunned fish. It didn't take long before we were into fish. My job was to transport the fish until we were done with the pass.

Will and Jerrod gettin' it done

After each pass, the fish would be placed in a live net in order to recover from the shock.

Our shocking of the stream produced almost all cutthroat x rainbow hybrids with many of them being under four inches long. A few fish were almost eight inches long, which was pretty impressive for the size of the creek.

When we were done with all three runs through the section, we compared the data to a 2008 figure. The numbers from the three passes were practically identical, the same amount of fish for the first two passes and only one fish more on the third pass. Will and Jerrod were amazed by the nearly identical counts and said "that never happens". It looks like the restoration work hasn't affected the population at all.

It was a great day with MFWP as I learned a ton of things. Working with Will and Jerrod is a lot of fun simply because they enjoy the work that they do (and they are really cool guys). I wish I had an actual position with MFWP, because doing jobs like this everyday would make for a very fun summer. Hopefully next summer will come with some opportunities to do so.

After resting for a few hours in Missoula, I met up with Mr. Anderson to do some fishing. We hit the Clark Fork for a few hours. The fish that we found were more than willing to take small attractor patterns and PMD's, as we enjoyed a nice evening of decent bows and browns.

The Youth of the Clark Fork

The Man Himself

All of the fish that we landed seemed to be fat and happy. They even put up good fights, despite the low flows and warm temperatures lately.

Fishing on the Mo may be picking up again as the prolific hatch of Tricos gets stronger every day. I'm looking forward to maybe getting out to do a night expedition on the Mo, in search of some big nocturnal browns. Stay tuned for the next post. Until then, I wish you great fishing!









Time is flying

It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that we were all back at school just getting done with all of our finals. This summer has flown by and it's surprising to think that in less than a month, we'll all be back at school once again. I have been returning to Missoula on most of my days off to fish and see Kelsey, who is back for preseason soccer.

This morning we hit Rock Creek for a while. The fish were more than cooperative on dries and we had a great morning full of decent browns and cutties. Kelsey continues to get better. At one point she made a pretty long cast to a small pocket on the far bank of the stream. A nice brownie nailed her fly and she set the hook perfectly. It was a great thing to see.

Another highlight of the morning was catching a trout that I've always wanted to catch; a tiger trout (brookie x brown hybrid). It was a nice surprise and a new species for me.

Fishing on the Mo has for the most part, slowed down. Tricos are showing up in more numbers each day and the caddis are still the primary hatch in the evenings. The fish have become a little picky and fishing in the morning is far more effective than when the water is warmer in the evening.

Ran into Trevor the other day in Missoula. We talked a bunch about our fall fishing plans. We have some great trips lined up and I'm actually excited to get back to school. Trevor has also started a blog, as he has been guiding on the Bitterroot this summer. Check it out at www.flyfishingwest.wordpress.com.

Tomorrow I'm headed back to Craig to work for the rest of the week. Until next time, I wish you awesome fishing.

Life Goes On

Life goes on in the land of Craig. I’ve had an awesome last couple of weeks and have had no internet to post about it. Now I do, so here you go:

On Fourth of July weekend I had a great time at my friend Cameron’s house in Poulsbo, Washington, as his family put on a party to remember. Tons of people, great food (an underground pig roast), great friends, and watching fireworks over the Puget sound. It was an awesome time for all.

Yum

On the fourth, Cam, Riley and I embarked on our three day mission to hike the brothers, a set of peaks on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. We had an amazing time on what was the most technical climb we had ever done. We had our run in with some curious mountain goats, 60 degree snow and ice slopes, and a crazy last rock scramble to the summit. The rewarding views from the summit were worth it all.

Very intimidating

The evil goat

Approaching the summit

Quite the view

The descent

After our adventure I headed north to the cascades to visit Kelsey. We took a nice drive on the scenic mountain loop highway and even fished a little bit for some summer run steelhead. Of course, we didn’t hook any of the elusive fish. I did have one steelhead smolt chase my fly though. I had a nice couple of days visiting Kels and hanging out with her family. Then it was time for me to head back east to Montana.

The mountain loop highway

Some amazing dry fly fishing greeted me upon my return, and the Mo began to show how good it really is. Up until that point I had not experienced how great the dry fly fishing could be. Over the past couple of weeks I have fished a lot, including one night of the craziest caddis hatch I have ever been in. There were so many caddis on the water that it was very tough to actually dry fly fish. I resorted to swinging a caddis emerger pattern. The caddis madness continues on the Mo and I have been landing some very nice fish and Cody has as well.

Big Bow

Big Brown

Big Storm

I am currently in Missoula relaxing after a day of helping Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks for my internship. Yesterday, fisheries biologist Will Schreck, 90 day biotech Jerrod, and I, hiked into a remote section of a small stream to sample it by electro-shocking. The hike was pretty strenuous and we spent the majority of it trying to climb down a steep wooded canyon, jumping over hundreds of fallen logs. The goal was to sample the stream to see if any bull trout were present.

I had never done electro-shocking before and let me say, it is not an easy gig. My job was to net the fish and I figured having all of this time in a drift boat netting fish would help…. Not at all! I learned quickly that you have to have a very quick and aggressive approach or the fish simply get away. We shocked about a 100 yard stretch of stream and collected about 20 fish, mostly brook trout. The few cutthroats that we caught were released and the brookies were dumped for grizzly food because they are a non native species. We did not find any bull trout.

After hiking all the way out to the truck, we headed north to a logging road that was being decommissioned. The road was close to a brook trout and pure cutthroat stream so we took some grass seed and spread it along the hillside that had just been ripped apart. The reason for the decommissioning is to provide a natural slope to prevent sediments from running down into the creek. It was a very similar job to what I had done the first time I went out with MFWP.

After the seeding was over we headed back to Missoula, stopping for ice cream as a treat for our hard work. At the gas station we ran into one of the wildlife biologists for the area. He said that a grizzly was spotted right in the area we were doing work in and that we are going to eventually run into it; Pretty exciting and scary at the same time.  I had a lot of fun yesterday and it was a great experience to work with Will and Jerrod.

Now it’s back to work! The weather has been very hot lately and hopefully it will cool down a little. The fish are taking a lot of pressure lately and the high water temps during the heat of the day are not helping anything either. The water has been low and if the water temps get any higher, the river may very likely be shut down to fishing after noon.

That’s all for now. I will hopefully be back in Missoula sometime next week. Have a great week!