Spring in The Valleys of The Beaverhead and Big Hole

Beaverhead Gold

Jed, my scraggly, red-headed angler buddy from way back suggested that we give the Yellowstone a rest and head east to the valley of the Big Hole and the Beaverhead Rivers. Having yet to be acquainted with this little corner of Montana, I was all too happy to oblige. Reports from this neck of the woods were non-descript, non-committal but ripe with an open-endedness that could not be ignored. Like many, I have played the victim to pages of fish-porn in many fly rags over the years depicting trout from these fabled waters. So hell ya, I wanted to go. Who’s drivin?

Jed’s aging F-150 pulled into The Flying J in Bozeman. At the urinal I noticed that mini DVD players were on sale, among other tough to live without items. The puck-sized mint couldn’t cover up the raw scent of piles of deposits made by traveling strangers. I walked out and Jed handed me breakfast. I’d have to work up the courage for this one, but once I got started the rubber-like bacon egg and cheese muffin seemed to disappear without too much protest.

Heading west on I-90 you do your best to fight the gravity of some other rather well-known Montana trout streams. Near the town of Three Forks, the Madison, the Gallatin and the Jefferson taunt as they join to create the headwaters to the mighty Missouri and the historical, Lewis and Clark trail. In all directions, clumps of mountain ranges jut from the otherwise open, burger producing grassland. With so much vastness ahead, one can’t help but feel liberated – each breath taking air seasoned by mountains, rivers and prairie.

Tobacco Root Mountains

Two hours later, we were passing through the small town of Twin Bridges. Home of Winston Fly Rods, this little trout mecca seemed still asleep. Most of the drift boats we saw sat neglected; some covered as if in hibernation, waiting for the mercury to rise. Like Three Forks, Twin Bridges also marks a significant convergence. Here, the Ruby River from the east, the Big Hole from the west and the Beaverhead from the south offer themselves up to the Jefferson River which continues on north through farm country on its way to the Missouri . Witnessing this scene, this converging lifeblood, flow by in the shadow of the Ruby and Tobacco Root mountains made it clear that two days in this country would not be nearly enough. The Ruby pulled me upstream. The Jefferson tugged me down valley. But we continued on, leaving them free of us for this particular go-round.

After buying a few bugs and picking some local brains at the fly shop in Dillon I sat at the put-in on the Big Hole waiting for the “red-headed step child” to return from the take-out downriver. It wasn’t long before an elderly local lady took his thumb bait and toted him back up to the ramp in her Lincoln. But while that was happening, I managed a few casts and hooked a couple trout on an Idlyle Jimmy Legs nymph. One little rainbow came to hand but the other, a behemoth of a fish who could have been her Granddaddy, spit the hook before any sort of tussle ensued.


A Healthy Big Hole Rainbow

We elected to float from Browns Bridge down to Glen which are two access points on the lower third of the river.  Being that it was still March, we figured the fish were still trying to shrug off their winter laziness and we hoped that river temps would be higher in this section, heightening their enthusiasm.  When Jed arrived, I took my turn on the sticks and we pushed out into a float of water, cobble and willows.

The Big Hole

Immediately we were taken by the structure along the outer banks. It looked as if there were little trout homes everywhere tucked into wads of roots, logs and eddy lines. We gravitated to these areas at the start but after many fruitless casts we began to shift our tactics. The outer banks held the brunt of the current and most portions were quite deep. After a while it became clear that if there were any fish on the outer banks, they were holding in the depths and thereby not interested in traveling up to take a fly that wasn’t placed at snout level. Trout do not want to fight the current in cold water temps – especially Brown Trout that actually prefer warmer temps than Rainbows. They will seek out slow flows and often live in the soft, non-descript looking water that doesn’t look as though it flows over much structure. During early spring and late fall, I find the majority of these fish in the same type of flow, regardless of what river I am on. It was the same old story this day on the Big Hole.