George Grant Chapter of TU will meet to discuss cleanup and restoration of Clark Fork R. and Silver Bow Cr. (updated)

The George Grant Chapter of Trout Unlimited is holding a Board of Directors meeting and the public is invited.  Some folks representing TU and the MT DOJ, as well as, Joe Griffin (retired MT DEQ hydrogeologist and all-around bad-ass) will be giving a presentation on the restoration and mine waste cleanup on Silver Bow Creek and the Upper Clark Fork River.

Updates:

• Casey Hackathorn of Trout Unlimited (national) will present on the Upper Clark Fork and its tributaries.
• Jason Lindstrom of MT FWP will present electro-fishing data from Silver Bow Creek.
• Pat Cunneen of the BNRC will likely present on efforts to remove the Parrot Tailings, Diggins East, and Northside Tailings from the banks of Upper Silver Bow Creek in Butte.

This is not one to be missed!!

The meeting is Monday, December 14, at 6:30 pm in the Business Development Center @ 305 W. Mercury St. in Butte, Montana. 

The phantom of the westslope

In only the most wild, clean, cold, and complex streams on the the west-slope of the northern Rockies, there is an ancient relic that is big, bad, beautiful, and sacred.

Image Credit: Joel Sartore/National Geographic Stock with Wade Fredenberg

In most of Montana, it is illegal to intentionally fish for bull trout due to their listing as a Threatened Species by the ESA.  Historically, all of the westslope streams in Montana, where trout could distribute themselves after the last ice age, were cutthroat and bull trout streams.  Rainbows are not native to Montana except for one strain in the Kootenai.  Brook trout are from the east of the continent and are bad news for bulls because they can breed and create sterile offspring (like horse + donkey = sterile mule).  Brown trout aren't even from this continent, they're European.  I won't even get into the lake trout/bull trout thing, it's super contentious and complicated.

The thing is, these absolutely amazing fish, while struggling, are still here and every once in a while, you'll catch one by accident.

If you fish in western Montana long enough, you'll hear of and eventually witness what we call "shark attacks." You'll catch a tiny cutthroat on a dry in mid summer only to watch a shadow appear from the depths and eat it off your line.  One time, up Rock Cr., I had a shark attack happen.  A shadow came out and whacked my tiny brown trout who just ate my stonefly dry.  I instinctively pulled the little trout away from the shadow and it disappeared.  I just kind of stood there stunned and as I pulled in my little wounded trout, the shadow came back without any concern of me standing there and grabbed my trout.  He didn't let go until I scooped him in my Measure Net. He was 20" long.  I've randomly caught other smaller bulls on streamers in the Blackfoot or Rock Creek and even caught an 18" bull on a skwala dry on the lower CF near Superior.

So why all this about bull trout?  It's because yesterday, I caught a 30" monster bull trout in downtown Missoula. It was about the craziest fishing experience I've ever had.  For the first 10 minutes, I thought I foul hooked a huge sucker.  You know how sometimes this happens and you think for a minute that you've caught the largest brown trout of your life until the sucker bellies up to the surface or you feel the tell-tale signs of a foul hook?

Not yesterday.  I was fishing a 6wt and for the sole purpose of conserving my flies while fishing dirty water, I had my upper nymph tied on 1x and my dropper on 2x.  When I first set the hook, it felt as if I hooked into a sinker log in the current.  My rod was just about ripped out my hand as this giant, throbbing, whatever ran into the main current.  After I figured out that whatever it was, it could not be a foul-hooked sucker, my heart started racing.  I could not pull this fish up in the water column or up river at all and I was confidently giving it hell due to my stout line.  My little rod was bent so hard I thought it would burst.  The fish was falling back with the current and taking me with him.  I caught it in slow, safe water and it was pulling me towards a raging, brown river.

It was about this time, that I noticed a small crowd had gathered on a footbridge about 50 yrds. downstream.  I didn't know if I'd be able to safely make it around some submerged trees and get to some slack water on the other side of the bridge.  I called out to the people on the bridge, "can you see it?"  A guy yelled back, "No, don't come this way!"  I got my answer and the only way I was going to ever see this fish and not die was to pull it back upstream.

When trout fishing, you don't normally have the time to think about a lot when you have a fish on.  Even the most epic battles are over pretty quick.  But this was like deep sea fishing.  Thoughts had time to creep into my head.  Is this a giant brown?  Did a pike eat a whitefish off my line?  I visualized all the knots on my hand tied leader.  I wondered if my cheap-ass rod would explode.

Eventually, some of the crowd made their way down to the bank behind me.  As I looked back at them, I saw that behind them, in the restaurant that overlooks the river, the staff and patrons were all standing at the windows watching me.  If you read my post yesterday, you know I don't normally fish around people.  Now, I had a genuine audience.  Oh god!

A minute later, I got my first look at the fish.  I screamed, "It's a fucking giant bull trout, oh my god!"  It took off deep again.  Now I had time for different thoughts.  I knew my net wasn't going to work - too small. I knew I had to do everything right as far as releasing this rare river phantom, especially because of my job, trout conservation reputation, and the audience watching.  I got him in close again.  It had to be getting tired because I kept having to switch arms because of burning muscles.

As I finally pulled the fish close enough to touch, I grabbed her by the caudal peduncle but she just shook me free.  On my next attempt, I thought I'd just go for the fly.  As I reached for it, she spooked and ran off again. On the last attempt, I grabbed the tippet right above the fly, the fish spooked, the fly dislodged, and the river phantom disappeared back to the darkness.

I looked up to the guy that was helping me.  He noted my undersized landing net floating away.  We both just couldn't believe what happened.  He was an old guy and he said he had never seen a fish like that in the Clark Fork.  He thanked me, I thought that was funny.  We laughed when we looked up in the restaurant and all the people were clapping and making the "how big?" gesture with their arms.  I love Missoula.

.        

A little push in the bush

Just keep telling yourself it's good for the trout.  It kinda works.

How to fish the "numora" stonefly

Learning to recognize when trout are keying in on secondary hatches is vital for catching them in certain situations.  A classic example of a secondary hatch, which can either make you snap your rod over your knee or give you a case of the shit-eating-grin, will start to show over the next couple of weeks here in MT.

The "numora" stonefly

The reason I keep using quotations around numora is because, although Numora is a genus of stonefly which is found around these parts, it is the wrong name for the genus of the fly we are actually talking about.  I learned this in an aquatic invertebrate ecology class w/ lab at the University of Montana.  Fly fishers have called it "numora" for so long that the name has stuck.  Now it is just a common name, so I don't capitalize it and I use the quotes.  I dangle somewhere in-between scientist and trout bum so I try and keep it real in both worlds.

You'll notice this small stonefly on warmer afternoons, especially on those sunny spring days.  They will flutter to the water in decent numbers to oviposit their eggs under the surface film.  They will sometimes skate around the surface resulting in aggressive, splashy, attacks from the trout.

The thing about this hatch, is that it happens when BWO's, March browns, grey drakes, and skwalas are everywhere.  You'll have had weeks of great fishing with the skwala/dropper or mayflies. Then, the day will come along and you'll still see fish rising (some splashy too) but generally, the fish will start caring less about those flies you've been using with such great results.

Then, you'll notice something.  You'll see one little "numora" leave the bank-side vegetation, flutter to the water surface, skate along and get crushed by a 16" cutbow.  Then, you'll look closer.  You'll see that 20+" rainbow in the scum line gracefully sip one while letting that march brown float on by.

So, you'll go home and put together some delicate, little, natural looking fly.  It may even work.  Or, you'll go buy some Chinese bullshit from the fly shops which may also work.  However, there is one simple secret that will make you look forward to this hatch like no other...

A couple of years ago, I found myself in the exact situation as described above.  I went to the Kingfisher Flyshop in Missoula to get some inspiration for my own "numora" fly.  When I asked the guy about it, he gave me one of the best little secrets ever.  He said simply, "We just use the Goddard Caddis."  I was kind of taken back.  I hardly even use them for caddis.  They float great and work fine for caddis on streams where there is little fishing pressure.  But they are not delicate like the "numora" and I'd bet whoever Goddard is, he didn't have stoneflies in mind when he developed the fly.  I was a bit skeptical.

Goddard caddis pic from West-fly-fishing

Of course, I wouldn't have written all this if the fly didn't work to a level beyond my greatest expectations. The trout's reaction was unreal.  I have caught so many great trout fishing the Goddard for a "numora."  The great thing about it, is that it floats well enough to put a dropper off the end of it and you can also see the fly from a mile away.  I'll usually have a Goddard trailing off of my skwala in a double dry setup.  Later in the hatch, and more often than not, the Goddard gets the eat.  Because the fish are really keyed into this hatch even though there area other bugs around, you'll actually get a bunch of surprise takes.  This fly likes to get eaten in strange places where you wouldn't expect it.  I've gotten a lot of eats from great fish while I was taking a sip of beer or untying a knot.  I hope this tip will help you out as much as it has for me.  Thank you Kingfisher!        

One more thing, cut the hackle flat on the bottom so it rides low in the film.  Do whatever you want with the antennae, "numoras" have them too.

  

Bitterroot Skwala Variant

2014 Model Skwala Dry

• Size 10-12 1-2XL Dry Fly Hook.  The curvy, stonefly hooks look great too.
• 6/0 olive thread
• Black craft foam
• Small black wire ribbing
• Goose Biots for tail
• Hand blended dubbing mix
• Old school Fishaus Tackle "Fly Sheet" for wings.  Any sheet wing material would work fine.
• Deer hair overwing
• Silicone legs
• Peacock herl for thorax under-body
• One Grizzly, one brown hackle

This is a variant on a fly that George Kesel ties.  Mine is a bit more involved but I love the silhouette.  The instructions for George's fly was published in the Westslope Chapter of Trout Unlimited's newsletter.  Here's the link: Bitterroot Skwala Tying Instructions Part 1 Bitterroot Skwala Tying Instructions Part 2

Here is the link to the Westslope TU website: http://www.westslopetu.org/

CDC Guide Fly - The Hanging Midge

CDC Hanging Midge

• Size 22-18 1XL Dry Fly Hook
• 8/0 Black Thread
• Black Antron Dubbing 
• Olive CDC Oiler Puffs

This fly works great for the larger midges found on the lower reaches of the Bitterroot and Clark Fork.  It is a million times more effective than some more complicated flies.  You can tie up a dozen of these before you even finish a beer.  They also work for emerging baetis.  Since those two hatches overlap and happen in both the spring and the fall, this fly is a real asset to have in your box!  My first fish on the dry of 2014 fell to this guy yesterday in a scum line near Lolo.  That is a solid month later than when this normally happens.  We usually are fishing midge dries by Valentines Day.