Big Sky Spring Creek Cuts

by 

August 2008

As some of you know fishing for wild trout in spring creeks has a thrill of its own. When you combine this with a family vacation and it is one of your kids first real experience with catching multiple trout; the joy of watching them report their success can be worth the price of admission alone.

We were bound for Yellowstone national park but first we were going to drop in on a family that had invited us to their home on the outskirts of the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness. Their home is a nice size ranch with all the comforts of home. While visiting Don had promised us that he would show us a piece of Montana seldom visited and do some fishing as well.
As soon as we arrived the fishing started and did not end until 3 days later. Don and his grandson Mitch took us to his most treasured spots and taught my daughters and me how to fish these pristine spring creeks. His wife Alice always had a great meal planned so our tummies were always happily full.
                                       
As soon as we arrived we were off to the first spring creek. I was still getting my spring creek legs, jumping from bolder to bolder but not really keeping up too well with Mitch. My 2 daughters were adapting quickly and starting to catch fish, I was starting to pick up the technique but was short on the fly that was hot; it was a Royal Coachman. I borrowed one from Mitch but you know how that goes. You have one fly that works and all the trees, snags, rocks, moss and everything else is after your one working fly. You feel like the arms of the trees just lowered themselves and the hands are ready to grab your fly. I had tied some Western Coachman flies for the installation dinner’s silent auction and I wished I had one extra right then.

             
Later that evening after dinner I used Mitch’s fly tying setup to tie a couple Western Coachmen. They are similar to the Royal Coachman but use a calf tail wing. Needless to say they worked like a charm.

The next day I used the Western Coachman and later a small bead head dropper to catch 20 fish. These were not monster trout just wild 6-10 inch cutthroat trout. I was using a 5wt bamboo rod and with the sensitive tip it made catching these wild cuts a pleasure. There was one pool on these spring creeks that was just spectacular and will never leave my mind. It had a double water fall at the head. The cool clear turquoise water made sight fishing possible. I could actually adjust my fly to antagonize these wild cuts in to striking and watching the take. It was enjoyable to watch these fish come out of their hiding place and attack my fly in or out of their pecking order. The upper pool had bull tout jumping once in a while but we never caught any of these.


The next day we spent fishing the Bitterroot. This is one of Montana’s Trophy Trout Rivers. We started up on the east fork and worked our way down. Due to a recent release of water it was not fishing as well as the previous week. I tried some of Don’s and Mitch’s favorite hot spots but only got one strike, which I missed. Don was able to get multiple strikes and land one nice cut. By this time the kids were getting antsy so Don took us back to one of his wonderful spring creeks and everyone started to immediately start catching fish again.
My daughters got real good and self sufficient at fly fishing these spring creeks. They learned a lot of the basics along the way and no longer ask for much help. Now it is almost starting to be a competition between us on who will catch the most fish.