Ahead of my fishing trip to Montana in early July, my old fly-casting instructor gave me some troubling advice. “Cancel your trip,” said Dusty Wissmath, who guides in the region. “Rebook for September, it’s going to be epic.”
It was the end of June and the fabled rivers of Southwest Montana — the Big Hole, the Madison, the Gallatin — were swollen and impenetrably brown from the runoff of huge snowfall that had left them nearly unfishable. I winced, but I knew better than to listen. Except for the coldest winter months, there is no bad time for fishing where I was headed.
I was lucky enough to be going fishing during the warmest month of the year in a place so full of beautiful water and big trout that I daydreamed about it for weeks. Floods, storms, grizzly bears and even a warning from a mentor were not going to get in the way. For some of us, fly fishing is an obsessive sport that drives the afflicted to bouts of monomania. A psychologist I know, who likes to fish, compares it with gambling.
My wife has come to accept my hobby so long as I only indulge in it at times when she won’t be outnumbered by our two children. She kindly let me go to Montana with my mother and nephew while her mother was in town. My plan was to land in Bozeman, drive to our family place near Twin Bridges, fish six days with pauses to sleep and eat, then come back replenished.
Dusty was right that the big snows had limited where I could fish. I would have loved to hunt fat brown trout on the Madison near Ennis, for instance, but in fly fishing parlance, that part of the river was blown out. All the churning water makes it hard for the fish to see a fly and dangerous to navigate the river. In late June, a man apparently drowned when his raft flipped while fishing the swollen Big Hole. His body was found two weeks later.
Luckily, Twin Bridges has many options for fishing locations. It sits at the confluence of some of the greatest trout water on earth. In town, the Beaverhead, Big Hole and Ruby rivers join to form the Jefferson, which flows about 80 miles before meeting the Madison and the Gallatin to become the Missouri. Aside from these renowned rivers, there are smaller spring-fed creeks, mountain streams, lakes and reservoirs. Plus Yellowstone Park’s lifetime of fishing is only two hours away.
In my week, I fished five big rivers, three creeks and a mountain lake, all stretches I had never seen before. Even with all the unsettled waters, my choices seemed unlimited. By the time I arrived, a beautiful thing had happened: the Big Hole had dropped and cleared. It was not just fishable but fantastic. I was a happy man because the river has the greatest combination beauty and bounty of any I have ever fished.
A lot of big rivers take weeks to clear after mountain snows begin to melt. But I learned that the Big Hole heals quickly and fishes most days. One day, I fished with Greg Smith, the owner of the Four Rivers fly shop in Twin Bridges. We picked a section lined with red rock canyons, cottonwood groves and ranches that were lush and green from all the water.