I got a typical call framed in an unusual way last night.
It was from a guy we’d met some years before in a very non-fishy setting though he perked right up when he discovered we were from Montana and tossed a fly here and there around the neighborhood.
He lives ‘down south’, which for reference purposes here takes in any- and everything south of a line drawn from Portland to Boise to Casper, Wyoming. He’s headed to southwestern Montana the last week of September and was of course looking for some magic insider’s information on where to fish.
He did manage to spin the question a bit differently, asking if I could only fish three area waters this fall and had to stop fly fishing forever thereafter, where would I go?
Despite my retort that he was asking the wrong question, as what he was looking for really depends much more on what sort of fishing he a) likes to do, and b) is actually capable of doing, shooting from the hip the following suggestions flowed forth with the required disclaimer –
Disclaimer. Fishing Montana and the Greater Yellowstone neighborhood in the fall is like sending the fat kid to the candy store. There’s more good to great fishing than you can shake a stick at, even in a smoky, low water fall like this one, and there’s no way I’d share my most beloved small waters.
That said, and due to personal bias and history, these suggestions followed as every fly fisher on the planet should consider these a bare-minimum Montana fall requirement:
Chasing the bruisers headed up out of Hebgen. Ok, much of the river / most of the river is not in Montana, though it’s damn close. Put on your walking boots, cover lots of ground, expect some company, throw the big stuff and get deep.
The Firehole in October. Again, not in Montana but still in the neighborhood. Mornings and evenings now as the river cools a bit; bwo and miller caddis while it’s still warm (relatively) tapering to ever-shrinking mayflies only. Dammit, the tribs are fishing well right now by report. Sorta’ve a spiritual thing for some of us, this be hallowed ground.
The Missouri. For years made an annual fall pilgrimage to the Missouri in the fall with some jaw-droppingly good fishing during transitional weather over there. Our default float was the Wolf Creek Bridge to Prewitt (buddy’s cabin nearby). Just might some of the best fishing of the year on a perennially great fishery. Shhhhhhhh.
The list could go on and on.
