Days 73-78, August 1-6, Butte MT

“Line control is the key” was the constant refrain during three days of hard fishing and rowing in southwest Montana with my old buddy John (Buck) Boehm and his brother-in-law Bob Bushmaker.

On Tuesday morning I packed things up after a short stay in Bannack State Park where I attempted to catch trout on Grasshopper Creek. The weather was uncooperative - i.e., stormy - so my fishing time was minimized.  Ultimately I gave it up to sit out the tempests inside Camelot and tie flies. My fly boxes were depleted, almost void of critical staples such as bead-head pheasant tails and size 16 and 18 parachute Adams, so I needed to cure that. During intermittent periods of sunshine asserting itself through thick columns of storm clouds and strong winds, I observed that my nearest neighbors in the campground were a young French couple. Everywhere I go there are French tourists! Evidently the fall of the dollar has been a boon for European tourism in America. I’ll return the favor by visiting France in late September with friends from Pennsylvania.

The drive from Bannack State Park through the Pioneer Mountains to Butte was another winding, up-and-down affair, but as always Excalibur handled it with aplomb. The scenery was awesome, as it almost always is in western Montana. After I crested the pass near the Maverick ski area and began the descent to the towns of Wise River and Divide, I was sorely tempted to stop and fish on the upper Wise River, which flows delightfully through several long meadows on its downhill course. Again the weather was unsettled and I didn’t want to get caught away from Camelot in a downpour as I had on Grasshopper Creek the day before. So I drove on, eventually passing over the Big Hole River, through Butte, and over Pipestone Pass toward Whitehall.

Bob and Julie Bushmaker live in a gorgeous log home on the slopes of Toll Mountain near the Continental Divide between Whitehall and Butte. Buck, Bob and Bob’s black Labrador Lou greeted me upon my arrival in mid-afternoon Tuesday and we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon on the upper deck with wine and cheese I brought with me from Jackson. We decided to detach Camelot from Excalibur for a few days, and did so while planning our fishing adventures for the remainder of the week. Bob and Julie entertained us with a fabulous steak dinner and some of Scotland’s finest spirits before we retired that night.

I’ve been trying to get Buck to become a fly fisher for the past 15 years or so, but it’s been a painfully slow process. On Wednesday morning Bob and I decked him out in fine fishing attire, armed him with a Sage rod, Orvis reel and other accoutrements of fly fishing, and mounted him in the bow of Bob’s drift boat when we launched at the Divide boat ramp on the Big Hole River. The Big Hole was clear but running a bit low for a drift boat, which drafts lower than a raft or canoe. Rowing to avoid rocks was a matter we attended to with great caution. Ultimately we managed to minimize damage to the boat and enjoyed an outstanding float through the canyon down to the takeout at Melrose. Here’s the scene - from left to right, Bob, Lou, and Buck posing in front of the drift boat on the Big Hole:

And here's Bob rowing the drift boat with Lou on lookout and Buck fishing:

Although our float was briefly interrupted by a vicious thundershower, the fishing was productive and the scenery unparalleled. A fair measure of our attention was devoted to teaching Buck the rudiments of fly casting, with an emphasis on line control. Before long Buck was getting many of his casts into the proper fishing locations and began to master his drag. It was a start. By mid-afternoon Buck hooked his first trout, and might have landed it if his left and right hands had been positioned to control the fish. Oh well - one step at a time. In the meantime I was hammering fish. Before the day was over I landed a dozen or more handsome trout, not-so-handsome whitefish, and one grayling. I’m not actually 100% about the grayling because he came off the hook just as I touched him. I didn’t get a clear look at his dorsal fin, the size of which would have been the giveaway to his status as a grayling. He definitely wasn’t a trout and he didn’t have the mouth of a whitefish, and he was the appropriate size and shape for a Big Hole grayling, so I’m claiming it was a grayling, which is a rare fish on American rivers in this day and age. The Big Hole is one of the few places in the U.S. outside of Alaska where you have a chance to catch one. Here’s a look at a couple of hefty trout specimens I landed in the Big Hole - a colorful brown and a bright and powerful rainbow:

Wednesday night Julie treated us to another great dinner at the Bushmaker abode as we prepared for the next outing. On Thursday we trailered the drift boat down to the Jefferson River. The Jeff is one of the three rivers (the Madison and the Gallatin are the other two) that join at Three Forks to form the mighty Missouri River. I’m told that flooding continues on the Missouri near Midwest towns such as Omaha and Council Bluffs because the high water emanating primarily from Montana mountains and rivers such as the Jeff has made its way there. The good news for us was that the Jeff itself, although still high and off-color, has dropped enough volume and cleared enough to be fishable and floatable. So off we went on a course toward the Cardwell take-out, again with Lou aboard, in search of big brown trout.

As it turned out, our search for big browns was mostly futile. I say “mostly” because we did see a few. By late afternoon we were using heavy streamers to hunt the fish, and eventually Bob tied on a large Bitch Creek, which is classic, colorful, rubber-legged fly - a standby pattern for desperate fly fishermen. While I rowed, Bob fired a long series of perfect casts within an inch or two of the deep banks and began to see action. On several occasions big brown trout darted out from their hidey holes and attacked the Bitch Creek, causing major commotion on the surface of the river. Somehow the trout didn’t hook themselves.  Bob went back to the oars and handed the rod to me. It took awhile, but eventually when we were about a half mile from the take-out ramp I hooked and landed a chunky rainbow. Fortunately the picture below is a close-up. “Fortunately” because you can’t quite see the excess line that was wrapped around my feet and eventually around Bob’s legs when he got out of the boat to help with the release and take the picture. We laughed about my lack of line control and admonished Buck to do as we said and not as we did. Line control is always important in fly fishing, from the initial set-up of a cast all the way through the fishing process until a caught fish is released and the line and fly are ready to be cast again. You could write an instructional book based solely on the principle of line control.  Here's the photo:

That evening we dined at a restaurant in La Hood, Montana, not far from the Cardwell boat ramp on the Jefferson River. The joint’s distinctly rough exterior belied its rustic but lovely interior, the quality of its food (especially the sour cherry pie!) and the quantity of beautiful ladies who inexplicably hung out in this little place far out in the sticks. It all made for another pleasant evening. We were dead tired when we got back to Bob and Julie‘s place, and soon went to bed.

It wasn’t yet Buck’s day in the sun on the Jeff, but he did gain a lot of casting practice and learned the basics of mending his line. All good preparation for the following day when we loaded Bob’s Avon raft into Excalibur’s empty bed and drove southeast past the dramatic Tobacco Root mountains to Ennis, Montana. After a brief stop at the Madison River Fly Shop in Ennis to line up a shuttle we launched the raft, sans Lou, on the riffly Madison River a few miles above Ennis Lake at Valley Garden. That particular section of the Madison is only lightly fished by outfitters and guides because fishing from a boat is prohibited by regulation. Floating that section in a boat is permitted, but all fishing must be done while wading. Fine with us. Our approach was to row a short distance to an area where there were multiple braids and channels separated by small islands that generated lots of fish-holding water. In such a spot one of us would get out of the boat and fish downriver to where the other two would park the boat and fish downriver from there.  When the first guy reached the boat he would row to find the others.  In such a manner we hop-scotched one another all the way down to Ennis Lake, alternating time in the raft and time wade-fishing.

You may recall my commentary on the Madison River inside Yellowstone Park where I fished a little over a week ago. Far downstream from Yellowstone the Madison is even flatter and shallower than it is in the park, but the fishing is similar. In the first area we stopped to fish, all three of us were quickly into trout on dry flies, including Buck. Buck put his newly-acquired casting, mending and other line-control skills to full use and landed five trout in short order. Here’s a picture of Buck with his first fly-rod-caught trout:

Technically that wasn’t Buck’s first fly-rod-caught trout. Long ago on a little creek below a high mountain lake I guided Buck to a large cutthroat in a tight hole below some brush and he caught that fish on a Stimulator with my fly rod. But that’s an whole other story and the circumstances were special. On the Madison, Buck started to look and act like a real fly fisherman. It was all about learning line control, and Buck is now well on his way to being a fully self-sufficient fly rodder. As for Bob and I, between us we landed a few dozen trout (Bob caught about 2/3 of them), both rainbows and browns. Most of the trout were very modest in size but we caught a few with a little heft and power, including this brown that I landed not far above the lake:

Upon our return from the Madison River Friday evening, Julie entertained us with another fine dinner - pork chops, zucchini, corn bread and a fantastic bread pudding with rum sauce. Outstanding! My many thanks to Bob and Julie, Buck and Lou, for hours and hours of entertainment, conversation, scenery, relaxation and fly fishing. As my trip approaches the 2/3 completion mark, I am reminded that the best part of it all may be the camaraderie of friends and family along the way. The wonderlands I’ve witnessed all over the U.S. have been amazing, the fly fishing has been frequent and productive, and the periods of solitude and reflection have given me a spiritual boost, but it’s hard to beat the company of gracious people when it comes to having a good time.

Thanks to all of you who are reading this who have generously shared your companionship with me along the way and before I even launched. When all is said and done and my journey ends, your part in my experiences is what I will remember most fondly. The next few days will find me visiting a couple of more spots in western Montana on my own before I fly from Missoula to Anchorage, Alaska. There I’ll join Trish for what may very well be the most impressionable part of my journey. I’ve begun the preparations today. The anticipation and excitement is hard to contain.

Before I wrap this up I want to say farewell to my friend Roger Witt, recently deceased. I was unable to attend his funeral in Pennsylvania last week but I’ve thought of him many, many times on my journey. Roger was the kind of generous, warm-hearted and kind person we should all strive to be. He gave of himself to Trish and me in so many ways without us having to ask. Trish told me there was a standing-room-only crowd at his funeral, which didn’t surprise me. All who knew Roger loved him and we will miss him dearly.