Where do you begin when talking about fly fishing in Montana? I almost didn’t come back, I was ready to cancel my flight home but fortunately, (I guess,) cooler heads prevailed. We were in the Moose Piss Bar, Grill and Casino the evening of our departure and I wanted to call the airline and cancel, or at least postpone the trip home but Rich wouldn’t let me have the cell phone. I tried to talk him into staying as well, I must have run that fly over him twenty times but, although he did look it over a time or two, he just wouldn’t bite. One thing I can say for sure: I’ll be going back. We fished the Missouri below Holter Dam for the most part and we took a couple of Hare Scrambles over the mountains to fish the Blackfoot, the Madison and the Gallatin. Most of the guys fished with nymphs, the best producer being a size 20 Disco Midge, for my part I stubbornly stuck with dry flies: size 22, Baetis, and while the guys were drifting nymphs I would stalk the banks seeking that close encounter with a Big Fish in Shallow Water, a Bank Sipper. Check out these photo’s and see what I’m talking about. Here’s Rich Small, in the photo with a Missouri River rainbow.
