Gallatin River, Montana

June 23, 2015

Gallatin River, Montana

I spent a couple of hours fishing the Gallatin River today. It's an iconic river of the American West, springing from Yellowstone National Park which is my eventual destination.

The Gallatin is one of the most scenic rivers in Montana, so pleasing on the eye that some of the scenes from the film 'A River Runs Through It' were filmed there instead of the Blackfoot River of the book. I was told that the Gallatin is one of Montana's most heavily pressured rivers, and a highway running alongside it for most of its course does make it very accessible, but I didn't really see much evidence of this or feel cramped for space.

White water rafters receiving last minute instructions before they hit the rapids

The view from my overnight campsite

I found a quiet spot in the river's canyon section, said to be one of its most productive reaches, and with my first cast tempted a little rainbow trout of about 7 inches to take a black rubber leg stonefly nymph.

According to my guidebook, the Gallatin's trout don't grow especially large, with mature fish around the 12 to 14 inch mark and a handful of 20 inchers caught every year.

I caught five more rainbow trout in fairly swift succession and the largest was 11 inches.

The very next fish felt different as soon as the indicator checked and tension rippled through my flyline. This fish immediately started stripping line and once it hit the fast current it kept going, like an express train. The unusual sight of my backing line flew through the rod guides, raising the stakes. The Gallatin's rocks are slippery and I precariously followed as fast as I could. Somehow I managed to keep myself dry and the fish on the line, and when it tired I was able to catch up to it several hundred yards downriver from where it was first hooked. The tortoise always beat the hare.

It was a brown trout, and a feisty one. I netted the fish and left it in the water while I took a few moments to recover my breath! I think it would rank as a pretty decent fish from the Gallatin and with the biggest, stupidest grin on my face, I packed up and left on the basis it was unlikely to be beaten today. What a wonderful few hours!