You
know, sometimes I get stuck in a fishing rut, and go to the same places over
and over. Now, when the starting point
is Montana, almost any place you choose is way above the average river in
anywhere USA. The advantage of going to
the same places often is one becomes familiar with the river, hatches, and watering
holes of the familiar zone.
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| sure is purdy up there in Montana! |
Well
this is a story of my balancing act between two loves. First of course, is my beautiful wife Julie,
and the other is second best thing in the whole wide world.......... you got it
fly fishing. 4
days off... Montana... summer... What to do? Gotta keep the missus happy.....
but fishing would be cool, What to do....?
I know I can do both!
I call it the Montana
double weekend, not to be confused with another of my favorite Montana doubles.
The folks at kettle house do it right!
Back to the rut thing I started
with, it seems most of our camping weekends are spent on the Thompson river.
this is because it is one of my favorite places on the planet, and Julie
doesn't hate it because it is beautiful and there are good places to hike and run.
(not to mention, but my fishing friend Jim just bought a cabin on the
Thompson, but that's for another
time). But this time we pack up the
family truckster and head north instead of southwest.
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| On the divide |
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| The big loop, up grave creek over the divide, down trail creek (yakinikak), to the North Fork |
First weekend an overnight into the
Whitefish Range. Camping at Tuchuck
campground, up the North Fork of the Flathead, then 20 miles up trail creek
road. 5 miles as the crow flies to Canada, this was the staging ground for many
a mountain bike adventure in my younger days. A sort of young-life crisis of
mine. When I tore my meniscus in my knee skiing, the doctor put the scope in my
knee, and told me I had the knees of a 50 year old. And to make them "last
as long as you can" So what was my answer to this news? well after the
percodans ran out I decided I wanted to ride my bike (or sometimes carry it) to
the top of every peak in the Whitefish Range. with people like Chris
"tele" Miller, Crazy Joe (always the favorite for the "first
blood award"), and Jon Pyle. At
least three of these rides were accessed from Tuchuck campground. These included, Tuchuck Mtn, Review Mtn, and
Mt Thompson Seton. I do have lots of pictures of these rides, but it was
pre-digital days, so they won't be in this post.
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| since no one else was there we really spread out at Tuchuck Campground. |
Talk about isolated we saw no more than 3 cars
once we left the semi-main road, and not one other person at the
campground. Since this is usually a
fishing blog, I will say that of course I always pack some sort of rod, my big
fishing moment came on day 1 when I caught a bull trout on a size 18 elk hair
caddis in Grave Creek, unfortunately he was under six inches. Still counted though.
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| Fishing Grave Creek with Maggie. |
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headwaters
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Generally tiny creeks = tiny fish
At the campground Trail creek was
closed to fishing, presumably to protect the Bull Trout. But, all I saw was
cutties that time of the summer. I normally stop using waders in June, but I
wished I would have packed them as trail creek couldn't have been more than 45
degrees.
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| who would want to fish here anyway? |
The next day we headed back to the
North Fork, and decided to take a side trip to Canada (only about 5 miles out
of our way), to the now defunct North Fork border crossing. Which has been closed for a long time. I
remember reading an article in the local news paper titled something like;
"the loneliest job in America" or something like that. This article
said some days zero people would cross and a busy day was six or seven. All in All it is still very cool at the end
of the road. My favorite is when you stand on the border you can look in either
direction and see where they have cut down all the trees, maybe a 50 foot wide swath all along the border.
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"Road don't go nowhere"
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Don't even think about sneakin' into canada they have infrared sensors. Notice the swath in background
As far as a "no-fishing weekend"
maybe not quite. But certainly nice to
go explore the beauty of Montana off the beaten path and hopefully keep harmony
in the family. Oh yeah, we also had to
observe another long standing tradition when adventuring in the Whitefish
range. That is to stop at the Polebridge Mercantile for a wonderful fresh baked
pocket sandwich and a beer, (we chose the Tamarack Hat Trick Hop, mmmmmm beer).
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| Maggie, saving her energy for the next adventure. |
stay tuned next time part two of my
double weekend a seldom done float on the Blackfoot river.
Hermit out
