"Montana's Last Best River: The Big Hole and its People"

This is a wonderful book by Pat Munday about one of the most fabled trout streams in the world, the Big Hole River.  Pat is a professor at Montana Tech in Butte and author of the EcoRover Blog (which sadly, seems to have been abandoned).

Excuse my napkin, I was reading the copy at Quarry Brewing in Butte

"Montana's Last Best River" has fabulous photography and covers everything from pre-European history to modern day conservation efforts.  Pat does a great job guiding the reader down the meandering relationships this amazing river had and still has with the people who've used it and loved it.

Of course, you can't write a book about the Big Hole and not talk about the impact this river has had on fly fishing.  Hey, those flies look familiar!!

This is a great book for any history buff, conservationist, and fly fisher.  Check out the copy at Quarry Brewing next time your in Butte and be sure to get one for yourself.

Where the Clark Fork begins

Outlet spillway for the Anaconda Settling Ponds

The Clark Fork River is the largest river by volume in the great state of Montana, USA.  Technically, its name is the Clark Fork of the Columbia River.  It get's its name from William Clark, the white explorer of the Lewis and Clark, Corps of Discovery.

The Clark Fork is a beautiful stream that exhibits a variety of personalities as it meanders westward out of the high Deer Lodge valley towards Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho.  Some famous MT trout streams make up the major tributaries including Rock Creek, the Blackfoot, and the Bitterroot.  The Flathead system also empties into the system down by Paradise.

The Clark Fork also has a gnarly history of abuse.  I mean seriously gnarly abuse!  If you have been a reader of this blog for any amount of time you've got an idea of the insanity that this stream has gone through. Abuses include being a dumping ground for a century of industrial scale mining and smeltering in the headwaters, smaller-scale (but no less destructive) mining in the tributaries, agricultural damage, interstates and railways, urbanization, de-watering, dams, sewage, invasive species, and much more.

If you root for the underdogs of the world like I do, the Clark Fork is sure to make you smile.  Despite the insanity, this river is still a world class trout fishery for most of its length.  It runs through some absolutely beautiful country and learning the history is super interesting.  In many ways, the Clark Fork is like the aorta which runs out of the historic heart of Montana - Butte.

The future of the Clark Fork is bright.  If you get the chance, fish it, learn about it, and love it.  You will not be disappointed!