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!

Brown trout, brown cows, blue soil, clear water

Mount Powell and the upper Clark Fork

The Clark Fork above the Little Blackfoot is running big and clear, and is fishing well.  It looks like it would be a great float and I didn't even see one boat.

I fished  from below the spillway, all the way down to Galen over two days.  The fishing slows down as you go downstream but you won't see another person for miles.  It was too windy to mess with the ponds.

A green Matuka or JJ Special worked great in the mornings and the large browns were pissed and came out of the shadows.  Nymhing worked best in the afternoon.  A firebead Ray Charles with a Little Green Machine or Rainbow Lightning Bug dropper killed it.  There are some huge rainbows which show up on my line up there every so often.  The common belief is that they've flushed over the spillway from the ponds.  I like to think they swam up there from the lower river.

Copper salts percolating out of soil 

Something important for folks to witness is the toxic, metal laden soils which line the banks and floodplain. The majority of the contamination came in 1908 when a 100 year flood turned the entire Clark Fork Valley into a massive toxic mudslide.  The flood waters flushed decades worth of industrial scale mine waste out of Butte and Anaconda and deposited it over 90 miles of floodplain.  A bunch of the sediment from the flood filled in the brand-spanking-new Milltown Reservoir.  The stumps are dead willows which could not grow in the toxic soil.  We call them "ghost willows."

Copper salts up close

Overly friendly brown cows