Boulder River Bows

My friends Eric and Jeremy talked me into getting out of the office yesterday afternoon, as it was 56 degrees and sunny, a welcomed warm-up. It didn't take a ton of convincing, really, since the forcast for the rest of the week is rain and snow. You can always make up work, right?

We headed over to the Boulder River, near McLeod, MT, home of the famous "Road Kill Bar and Grill". I had never been to the Boulder River Valley, so I was pretty pumped to see the river, check out Natural Bridge, and see if we could fool some early season trout.


It's a truly breathtaking area, even after last year's fire which wiped out much of the forest coverage in the area. It will grow back green and beautiful, there's no doubt. In the meantime, you can see the burn, but the river itself is gorgeous, with aqua green colored pools, interesting rock walls, and perfect weed beds for hiding rainbow trout. Natural Bridge was impressive as well, essentially a spot in the river where the water dissapears into a hole and emerges below in a falls, emptying out into a deep pool of cold, emerald water. It's definitely something worth seeing, even in the early season before runoff. At peak runoff levels, it would be an ominous sight.


We started our day with a bang, picking off 2 nice rainbows on beadheads in the first good looking hole. Eric got one on a streamer just down river, so things looked good from the start.

After he picked up a few more as we moved along, we decided streamers were the way to go, and all tied on some yellow ones.

They were ready to eat, that's for sure. I'm wondering if it wasn't the first batch of flies those fish had seen in awhile.


It was pretty windy (not a shocker for March in MT), so we never ended up seeing much surface activity, but the streamer fishing held out from beginning to end.

The dogs were going bonzo of course, which was great. Zeuser had been giving me dirty looks for weeks as I stared at my computer from morning 'til night.

Today he hasn't opened his eyes yet...





Right as we decided it was time to start heading out, I had a string of fly fishing fumbles, typical to my style. Jeremy was fighting a good one as I hooked up for a double...about 4 feet in front of me before I could land the fish it spit the muddler and darted. Damn. About 3 casts later I hook into another one and broke it off instantaneously. I then cussed at myself as I watch this fish a foot under the surface look at me and try to shake my bug out of his mouth. Grrr... Fumble number 3 was right as we were about to leave. I hooked into a heavy fish, gave him some heat, and as he pretty much doubled over my 6 wt., the thing spit my fly as though there was no hook on it.

I was pissed. It had been a great day anyway, but that's still no way to end it. Then Eric told me to cast toward a tree stump and strip it back. I did, and I caught this guy...


As the photo indicates, I wasn't pissed anymore. We exchanged geeked-out angler high-fives and immediately headed over to the Road Kill for a round. Great way to end an amazing day on the Boulder River.