Blackfoot River, Montana

This was a poignant trip to the river central to Norman McLean's book 'A River Runs Through It'.  You could almost say I had come full circle because the 1992 film adaption of the book inspired me to start fly fishing. 

I chose to fish the North Fork of the Blackfoot River where it emerges from the vast Scapegoat Wilderness area of the Lolo National Forest. My destination was the campsite where the gravel Cooper's Road simply ends. The campsite sits at the trailhead of the Hobnail Tom trail, which follows the North Fork to its headwaters for 30 miles into the wilderness. 'Hobnail Tom' was the nickname given to the outfitter Thomas Albin Edwards who from 1937 owned a ranch in the Blackfoot valley near Ovando and took guests on pack trips into the mountains. Tom was instrumental in petitioning for the creation of the Scapegoat Wilderness, the first citizen-created federal wilderness area, having made made several trips to Washington D.C. to plead the case. Tom was apparently an excellent fly fisherman too. 

I'm still bear shy so I didn't venture too far into the wilderness to camp. I based myself at the trailhead campground, and could follow the trail as far as I needed in a day trip. 

This was, to my mind, the quintessential American fly fishing trip, and it perhaps had a great deal to do with my early literary influences, including 'A River Runs Through It', of course. I think the presence of tall mountains, pine trees, blue skies, clear, turbulent water, cutthroat trout, the presence of dangerous animals, long evenings spent around a crackling camp fire, all accompanied by an unbridled spirit of exploration, are very redolent of fishing in the West.

The Blackfoot flowed far below the trail in the valley, carved out by Ice Age glaciers many, many years ago. The vista was somewhat unusual at first, and then I realised it was the sheer number of dead, grey Lodgepole pines pointing to the heavens, the aftermath of an enormous fire in 1988. The valley is still recovering almost three decades later. It explained the abundance of juvenile trees.   

The river is home to native Westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout. I mostly fished with a dry fly, and  large, bushy dry flies at that, because the fish were in the mood to take them. Golden stoneflies seemed to do the trick on most occasions but I did on occasion have trouble setting the large hook, and missed several takes. I was going to say that cutthroat trout proved not to be the dry fly 'suckers' they are made out to be, because I saw a number come up to the fly and turn away in sudden rejection, but then one smashed my white plastic bobber indicator when I was fishing a nymph and destroyed that illusion of fastidiousness. When a large stonefly pattern spooked a fish, a smaller elk hair caddis or Stimulator would usually succeed in bringing them back to the surface in a more willing mood.

This trout didn't have a maxilla, something I commonly encountered in the West, which I put down to fishing pressure and possibly the use of spinning hooks.

I resorted to using a nymph on two occasions. The first time resulted in two whitefish taking the nymph and also my first ever bull trout. The bull trout was only a little specimen and was quickly released because it's illegal to target them. Bull trout are fish eaters and can grow to a prodigious size. I've heard several tales of bull trout attacking a cutthroat at the end of a fly fisher's line and being landed because they refused to let go! In fact, when I hooked my largest cutthroat - perhaps a good 16 inches - it was dwarfed by an excited bull trout which followed it around in perfect synchronisation like a Red Arrows wingman. 

The second time a nymph made it out of my fly box saw three cutthroat come to my net in less than five minutes. I had the idea that I could have caught many more fish had I consistently used a nymph, but dare I say it, that might have made things far too easy.

My first bull trout

Speaking of my landing net, regular readers will know that a few weeks ago I purchased a Brodin net to serve as a memento of this leg of my trip. Brodin is the Aston Martin of nets - fancy but traditional - so well made too that they will last a lifetime. Well, I kissed mine goodbye when it floated away with the fast current. I searched in vain and its loss hit me like a missing puppy. I searched for it again the following day and eventually gave up. Then, a couple of miles upriver, something glinting in the sun half way up the canyon caught my eye. It was somebody else's net! I looked around for the owner but the net appeared to have been there for a while. If you recognise it, let me know and I will post it to you. If there are no takers, well, it's no Brodin, but will make an adequate replacement on my travels.

This was a fabulous trip. If I was more confident in camping in a tent in grizzly country, I'd have loved to have walked and camped much further upstream. Cutthroat trout certainly seem to possess an apparent joie de vivre, a greater willingness to take a dry fly than, say, a brown trout. Spending a couple of days fishing with large dry flies, in such superb scenery and weather, was very satisfying for my soul.