It’s been a minute since I last posted here. It is not for lack of things to talk about. There have been many fishing adventures with many fish caught and lovely things to see and I will probably get to documenting them at some point. I think it is because I just feel exhausted from what is going on in America and, quite frankly, I have been spending my time so irritated I can’t seem to focus my thoughts. At this point, I am not going to try and unravel those feelings and thoughts for a blog post. That would only make me feel worse by the end. So, let’s stay on a more enjoyable track (for me anyway) and discuss the most amazing fishing trip, to date, I have ever taken. A return trip to the Missoula, MT area.
My first trip to Montana was fourteen years ago, two years after moving to Eastern Washington. That, too, was memorable for different reasons, being the first trip in a many years with my long-time fishing partner, Mike Krol.
That trip was also the first time I booked a guide with Classic Journey Outfitters, now also known as Missoula River Lodge. That trip and this most recent one have a sentimental connection that I will discuss later.
Early this year our older daughter, Megan, suggested I needed to go on a more luxurious trip than packing a tent and camping. Perhaps a distant destination or a lodge experience. I think she thought I wasn’t adequately enjoying the fruits of my labors in retirement. She and her mother have travelled to Spain and this year Ireland and Scotland. So, I started researching a trip for her and I with the caveat that she doesn’t fish and there should be opportunities for her. We settled on Missoula, MT where there is downtown for her to explore while I fish.
I called the Missoula River Lodge about options for a 3 night/2 day stay in September, a month that worked for Megan’s work schedule. I also talked to them about a guide recommendation. The trip I took with Mike we floated the Bitterroot River with their guide Ryan Geiges, who was great to spend a day with. I told them how I always hoped to fish with Ryan again and was saddened when I heard he passed away last year after a battle with colon cancer. I was told their young guide; Silas Jensen was mentored by Ryan and was of the same personality. So, we booked September 13-16 with Megan floating and taking pictures from the back seat of the boat one of the days and sightseeing the area on the other day while I fished again.
After a 5-hour drive across the Idaho panhandle and over Lookout Pass into Montana we reached the Missoula River Lodge building where our two suites were waiting for us, and we were greeted by the lodge manager. She showed us around and left us with wine and a seat on the patio where we took in the view I have missed for too long.
Around 5:00 the guides started returning with their clients from the day’s fishing. At dinner, promptly at 7:00, there would be 13 of us around a long table. Turned out to be a fun group with a dad with his two adult sons from Pittsburgh and four couples from Florida. I should mention now that the food prepared by the chefs (one on Sunday and another during the week) was absolutely amazing, if not a bit more than I am used to eating. These are some of the courses we enjoyed. Personally, the bison and short ribs on polenta were my favorites. Oh, and the wine choices were many.
Before dinner on Sunday, I got to chat with my guide Silas, and he asked me what my goals were for our time together the next two days. I told him that I had been away from river trout fishing for some time and was just looking forward to floating a river with no particular expectations. I did say that after decades of fly fishing giving streamers only casual attention, I would like to improve my streamer game. The guides network after their days with clients and compare notes, so they have options to meet the clients’ expectations the next day. I would find out what he planned then.
Breakfast was promptly at 8:00, for which I have no pictures, but it was wonderful and filling. At 8:30 our guides and their boats/rafts were lined up out front of our suites. Silas reaffirmed what I wanted to do and said others were getting brown trout on the upper Clark Fork on both streamers and hopper/dropper rigs. He asked if I was “cool” with an hour drive to do a float up there. I told him that I always followed my guide’s recommendations.
The long ride gave us a lot of time to get acquainted with each other, which I think gave him time to fully understand my experience level and what I enjoy. I want to point out that we saw no other boats on Monday and only one on Tuesday, which really didn’t interfere with our plans. That said, I considered not mentioning where we were to avoid the dreaded “hotspotting”. However, considering my limited following it is probably not an issue, so let’s just say we floated in the general Drummond area of the Clark Fork. This is a good area to find browns, especially as they get ready for fall spawning in the tributaries. As we launched, I was not prepared for just how memorable the day would be. Silas prepared my two rods; my dry fly rod with a foam hopper and beaded nymph dropper below it and my streamer rod with a #6 Sparkle Minnow (pretty small size I thought). What he likes to do is pick the method that might put fish in the boat fairly quickly to kick things off and get a sense of what might work. Right at the launch he rowed us up to the head of the run and handed me the hopper/dropper rig and said put it in the middle of the seam. No more than the dropper getting near the bottom than there was a flash and miss on the nymph – promising. On the second cast a trout hammered the hopper and came to the net. Was this a curse of too good, too soon or were we in for an amazing day. Off we went.
I should set the scene for the weather that was cold and the sky was threatening. We had a rough day weatherwise a head. While we dodged serious rain, the cold and 20 mph wind was brutal.
From here on I am just going to show you pictures of how the two days of fishing went because they can both the described as incredible. We fished a single streamer (first picture) for most of both days, but we also fished the hopper/dropper rig and a two-nymph rig under a strike indicator (bobber) and all caught fish in the appropriate places. My wife and Megan have both been critical of not being in any of the pictures, but for the sake of keeping the trout healthy before release I was happy to get pictures of Silas holding them right out of the net. After all, it is about the fish.
We caught many other fish that were nice on any other day, but no “picture worthy” on these days, including a couple of whitefish and cutthroat trout.
It was, of course, a highlight in my decades long love for rivers, trout, and fly fishing and I plan to do it for as long as I am able. It is not cheap to do it this way, but worth it occasionally. I can’t recommend the lodge, staff, and guides at Missoula River Lodge enough. They will not disappoint.
Landing In The PNW 