The Montana Fly Fishing Road Trip Continues: This Time an Even Smaller Stream

When we last left our heroes, we were wallowing in the big, trouty playpen that is Montana.

We’d fished a stream for surprisingly good-sized cutthroat trout, and then headed home to reprovision - and run a little bluelining exercise on [name redacted]’s topo maps.

Thanks to my benefactor’s Mad Map Skillz, the next morning found us staring at a small stream which - and read this part carefully - may not have been fished this year.

If that doesn’t make the hair on your neck stand up, you’re either not a fly fisherman, or you’re dead.

It looks small, but fished big. And don’t even ask.

The tiny meadow stretch was the prototypical killer small stream.

Deeper-than-expected water, undercut banks, and overhanging vegetation meant trout had plenty of places to hide. And food had plenty of places to grow.

The result?

Plenty of Westslope Cutthroat trout - and even a few Official Char of the Trout Underground (brookies):

The trout weren’t picky, but neither were they stupid.

Like most meadow streams, stealth trumped fly selection, and the ability roll an accurate cast off the rod tip was far more important than tippet size.

And sneaking was good too (it almost always is).

My 8′ 5wt Phillipson bamboo fly rod sometimes felt almost perfect for the job - it’s damned accurate, and throws just the leader with grace.

But it sometimes seemed a little strong for 8″ trout.

Then an 11″ cutthroat would grab the fly and run for a root-studded undercut bank, and suddenly, the rod seemed entirely perfect for the gig (today’s lesson in relative perfectionism).

Meanwhile, [name redacted] had once again latched onto my 8.5′ Diamondglass 4wt, and demonstrated its capacity for this kind of work by landing the day’s winning trout in both the “Length” and “Best Use of Color” categories:

14 inches? We’re not sure, but he’s damned pretty.

We hopscotched each other up the meadow, picking out landmarks for starting points, and waiting for the lower angler to catch up.

We enjoyed plenty of trout, perfect weather, and - due to the utter lack of trampled grass, trails, boot prints, trash or other signs of humanity — the odd feeling that this little meadow stream hadn’t been fished this year.

True? False? We can’t say for sure, but the notion’s almost overwhelmingly romantic.

Looks grueling, eh?

After we’d fished the entire length of the meadow - and stripped several dry flies almost down to bare hook - we set up camp on a windy ridge overlooking a bigger stream, where we fished the next day.

I’ll post that report in a couple days. But stay tuned; I’ve got something interesting in the works for the Undergrounders…

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

Tagged as: brook trout, cutthroat trout, fishing, Fly Fishing, fly fishing for trout, fly fishing montana