My parents decided to celebrate their 50th anniversary in a cool way: a family trip to Montana.  This trip was modelled after one a generation earlier, when my grandparents, my uncle, and my mom and dad brought my sister and me along on a Yellowstone Park adventure in the late 1980s.

The stories from that trip have lived on in our family get-togethers, sadly even outlasting half of the family members on that trip.  By the end of the week, I remember my grandmother finally sitting in the front seat of the minivan, only to nearly choke on a piece of fudge when my fast-driving Uncle Dave rounded a sharp turn and nearly crashed into a male bison.

For my 11 year-old self on that previous trip, a placid horseback ride in the backcountry on the plodding “Old Buck” turned raucous with the horse showing his first sign of action in years.  My steed gave a new meaning to the term “lightning bolt” by rearing and taking me on a dash through dense forest when a nearby lightning strike returned him to his youth.   At least he went to his right, as a steep canyon a few feet to the left of the trail would have meant I couldn’t tell the story.

I knew this was not a fishing trip, although that didn’t seem to help my attitude as our family caravan drove past mile after mile of glistening rivers filled with trout.  It made me realize just how much of an angler I really am.  Despite the focus (properly) being on making sure my parents fully enjoyed themselves and spending quality family time together, I seemed to accumulate fishing angst each passing day.  I didn’t want to, but I could not seem to help it!

I was granted some fishing time where I sprinted to the Gallatin River, but three rounds of thunderstorms served to make it mostly a scouting, walking, and limited fishing outing.  This only seemed to compound the problem.  When the last day of the trip arrived and everyone was tired from a long day sightseeing in Yellowstone National Park, I got a hall pass for a free fishing day!

It was late morning when I got the all clear, and I knew I was only an hour from DePuy Spring Creek, having nearly injured myself rubber necking it on the way by a few days prior.  I checked the website, made a phone call, and they had a few rod reservations available to fish the creek that day.  I quickly read fellow blogger David Hyde’s “Paying to play” blog post on my way out the door and hit the road.

I typically would prepare, research, and arm myself with a raft of flies to approach any far away destination new and exotic to me.  So arriving at this famous stream armed with only Dave’s advice to “find moving water” was a new experience.  I wadered up, hopped into the creek, and began seeing some fish immediately.   No other anglers were in sight; I wasn’t even sure if wading in the middle of the small creek was a reasonable approach to these wily wild fish.

I started by casting a grasshopper pattern at a shady, grassy bank and rejoiced when a fat rainbow gulped the fly, even though he shook the hook loose.  I switched to a sulphur emerger pattern when I saw a few rises, and I blinked in disbelief when an enormous mouth engulfed my tiny fly.  A fat rainbow took to the air like a largemouth bass when I set the hook, and for some reason the fish stayed on while I dashed around and navigated it through many aquatic weed beds, blistering runs, and more splashy aerial displays.  I snapped a few pictures of the fat, healthy fish, and any  pent up fishing emotions were released along with the fish.

I ended up fishing almost entirely dry flies, if only because I seemed to be able to keep fooling just enough fish to keep things interesting as the day went on.   The allure of large fish eating on top proved to be too much to ignore.  I would end up hooking a lot of fish and not landing very many.  The typical sequence would go something like this: a nose would appear and slurp my fly, I’d set the hook, a cartwheeling fish would rocket out of the river, and the line would go slack. Since I had already landed a nice fish, this proved to be great fun.

The Montana weather was schizophrenic, with gusting winds, rain showers, thunder, and of course bright blue sky.   The fish shaking loose my flies were not the only rainbows taking to the sky, as a complete double rainbow framed by mountains followed a late afternoon rain shower.

I hiked along the creek away from the road and noticed that the fish seemed to spook more readily.  I wondered if this behavior might mean these fish see fewer flies, and resumed throwing a grasshopper pattern towards the bank.   A big mouth belonging to a 20″ cutthroat trout rewarded me shortly after, making the rest of the day pure gravy.

Sulphur mayflies started to emerge around 5 pm, when it seemed everyone else had left.  I mused that in the west, the waves of pale yellow insects were not a noteworthy hatch for anglers (compared to peak season).  For me, approaching with an east coast mindset, I decided we sometimes call anything with more than three mayflies and one rising trout a “hatch.”  I spent the brief sulphur hatch fishing to two fish, neither of which I landed.  One ate a natural right next to my fly and I hit it’s body when I set the hook reflexively, putting it down.   The other was a smaller 13″ or so brown trout that would only eat insects within 1″ of a scum line along a bank lined with overhanging grass.  After quite a while I did present him with three different options, but got no takes.

The fish were not the only unique aspect to the day, as meeting fourth generation owner and caretaker Daryl Smith and seeing the southern style mansion were highlights as well.  Buzz Basini’s tiny fly shop at the southern end of the creek sold tiny fly patterns that I think helped me land large fish.

Reflecting on the way home, I think the wind, longer than normal casts, and tricky currents made it harder than normal for me to get a good hookset.  I also think that the East Coast fishing experience translates well when fishing Western waters with higher fish densities.  It seemed like I had had a lot of success, but I think I landed four or five fish all day.  In a major stroke of good fortune, I only seemed to land large fish 😉

I started off the day wondering why I was paying a rod fee to fish a private spring creek.  By the end of the day I felt like I had gotten far more than my money’s worth.  Approaching something with no expectations certainly has its advantages.  I’m not sure that I’ll go into a new fishery totally cold again, but I was proud to be able to figure out some methods to fool tricky fish on the fly.

We all had a great trip, and I’m thankful that my parents wanted to share it with all of us.  We ended up on some real adventures and there is a new generation of family stories.  I am sure some of those tales will outlast some of us.