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A Cloudy Fall Day In The Park

The mountains beckoned...

 

I tossed a few flies in McDonald Creek but nothin' was doin' so we just drove around and took some pictures.

I got some good pics but the clouds rolled in. At least it didn't rain on our parade! The drive home was beautiful as always.

I'm going to continue trying to get out in search of Grayling and some cutties from the kayak but only if the weather holds up.

Fall Fly Tying

For the last week I've done little more than tie flies, mostly zebra midges. I got a bunch of thread and a few hundred hooks and put 'em up on eBay. If anyone is interested go to eBay, search zebra midge, and look for the flies with the same background as these pics! I accept custom orders too...

I'm going to move my tying desk into the living room this winter and tie up a few hundred stimulator, caddis, royal wulff, para adams, hopper, ant, and misc nymph patterns for next summer.

 Here are some patterns I'm working on perfecting!

Trip Report: Brookies and Browns

Today I hooked into the biggest brookie I've ever caught!

This football of a brookie came out of a deep pool. I had a nice brown strike on the previous cast so when this guy hit I believed I was pulling in a brown.

 

After a few hours of fishing I pulled in around a dozen decent browns and a few more brookies. I hope to get back out over the next few weeks. Hopefully I'll make an appearance at a grayling filled lake tomorrow!

Some Pretty Pictures

 It always amazes me to see vegetation growing on top of rock. These photos are from Leigh Lake in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. The trail to the lake is a steep and strenuous mile and a half up. When we got over the crest and onto the last hundred yards of flat trail we almost missed the lake! Not really, but the winds died and the reflections played with our perception.

This spring we hit Lake McDonald in Glacier Nat'l Park and the water was dead calm.

The picture on the left is on the 5 mile steep and strenuous trail to the Mount Brown Lookout trail. This is me fishing at Snyder Lake, off the same trailhead to Mt. Brown.

This little lake lies just before Iceberg Lake, one of the most popular and beautiful trails in the park!

When you drive south of the park on US Hwy 2 there is a little waterfall on the south side of the road about mid way through the park. The falls actually fall from the mountains of the Great Bear Wilderness. A buddy and I climbed the fall last year and this was the view that we found!

 

This was a lake in the Jewel Basin. We fished near the outlet with limited success. We then moved to where a small alpine stream flowed in. At this junction we had much better success pulling in around a dozen fish in just a few minutes. 

 This spot, also in the Basin, is much better for wildlife viewing than fishing...

Trip Report: Brook Trout Bonanza

People generally don't take too kindly to brook trout around here. Cutthroats and Bull Trout are the native trout around these parts and anything else is considered undesirable. As such I decided to head out to a local brookie sanctuary to grab a few late fall brookies for the frying pan!

I cast a few flies at 'em but decided for the faster paced spinning gear. 

 After fishing for some time the snowflakes started to fly! We had no issues with the weather due to the quality of the fishing. We kept 7 nice sized males and released a few dozen smaller males. All females were returned to fight another day.

 My buddy hooked into the big fish of the day, a feisty 17 inch brown!

After a quick drive home we carved up the fish, breaded 'em, and fried them up in the cast iron frying pan. These were by far the best tasting trout I've had. I probably won't be getting out too often for the next few months but stay tuned, I would like to do some "how to" tying posts.

Trip Report: Kayaking for Cutthroats

Today I kayak fished the Flathead River. By paddling upstream and casting into current seams I managed to pull in around 7 trout and one whitefish.

 

The first one snapped on a small orange caddis. The next two both hit a purple parachute adams. Neither hit too hard but it was nice to catch a few nicer cutthroats! This river is tough.

  

After catching those three it started to rain. With no lightening or thunder I stayed out swinging my 9 ft lightening rod above my head. The fall colors were beautiful

 I hope to get out a few more times before winter sets in!

Trip Report: Whitefish Mountains Grayling

Today we took a drive through the Sillwater State Forest into the Whitefish Mountains and the Flathead National Forest. We brought the kayaks and fished at two lakes right off the road. The first lake sat at an elevation of around 5,600' and reportedly harbors abundant populations of Westslope Cutthroat trout and Arctic Grayling. 

 This lake had crystal clear water with a bluish green tint to it. I could see plenty of Grayling chase my spinner and check out my flies but only one taker.

 The Old Town Otter XT. The best yak in the game. Cheap, durable, and beat to hell.

This guy was really pretty. I didn't catch any more at this lake.

The wife and I paddled across this lake in search of a big 'ol cuttie. All I found was a small brookie willing and eager to take a deer hair caddis. He was not picture worthy.

 It was a little chilly but otherwise great day to explore this area! Maybe next time we'll catch a few more fish though...

Trip Report: Smoke On (or above) The Water

After a fire southeast of here flared up a few days ago the valley filled with smoke. I ventured out to a local lake in the Salish Mountains looking for respite from the smoke. I did not find relief...but I did find Grayling and Cutthroats!

 

 Lilly pads circled the lake for the first hundred feet. I caught a bunch of nice grayling casting a deer hair caddis about five feet off the edges. When the wind died they really started jumping around.

After the first hour that I spent deep nymphing I needed to start catching fish. After switching to the caddis I caught around a dozen grayling and one decent cutthroat!

After a long day and a treacherous drive I'm glad I took the trip. I hope to get up here one more time this summer.

Trip Report: Cabinet Mountains Wilderness

With the woman out of town a friend and I headed for an obscure corner of Northwest Montana to hike, fish, and practice photography. After a long drive and a treacherous climb up a precipitous washout we got to the trail head at around 11.00.  The trail was a little over 1.5 miles to the lake and gained around 1000 feet but despite these unimpressive statistics it was pretty hard. 

It was steep but as soon as the forest opened up we got great views of the valley.

 By this point we crossed numerous washed out, steep, and rocky switchbacks. We were close!
 

This was our first view of the lake. It was dead calm and we spotted plenty of fish rising! I heard rainbows but I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.

 I only had one deer hair caddis and no midges so after losing the caddis things got tough for me. My buddy used a little spinner and he pulled in a nicer one, but because the reel had very little line he couldn't cover much territory...

So I decided to cover more on foot! While walking on this logjam I spotted the outflow. In the first little pool I spotted, photographed, and filmed, a snake swimming after a brook trout.

At this point he had gotten a good chomp down and they were struggling. The snake kept trying to get the fish onto shore but the fish fought hard. I continued on to climb up as high as I could to get a picture of the lake from above. I got pretty high but in the grand scheme of things I was nowhere near as high as I needed to go for a good aerial photo.

 That's alright though because the colors were beautiful, the fish were eager enough, and the mountains were awesome! After a few hours up here we bid the lake goodbye and headed back toward the car. On the way home I caught a few little trout in some of the rivers along the highway.