The second weekend (don't you wish you could have it all?)

        I'm sure most anyone who fancies themselves a fly-fisherman has seen "A river runs through it"  The river than ran through that movie they called the "Big Blackfoot", I guess so as to not be confused with the Little Blackfoot, even though I heard it was mostly filmed in British Columbia.  One would think with all the pub the Blackfoot would be overrun with sage-wielding dry fly purists, and movie critics alike.  That's what my fishing friend Jim and I figured would be happening, so in order to avoid that, and the "tuber-hatch" downstream, we opted for a lesser known float to do an overnight trip on the Biggest Blackfoot.  

get out of our way if you see us coming!

       More on Jim later (Julie calls him my "rich boyfriend")  suffice to say he is usually game for whatever hair-brained idea I come up with.  Most times we catch fish (Missouri day 1), sometimes we just enjoy the scenery (the Smith river sure is pretty), sometimes we get stuck in a blizzard (Missouri day 2), but it all works out in the end (MNF at the bar at Clearwater junction). So floating his monstrous pontoon raft through uncharted (by us) waters was par for the course. 

still for sale, not the cow the store

           One advantage of floating the Blackfoot is as far as drives go it is one of the nicest in Montana, highway 83 through the Seely/swan and then to Ovando. Once we get to Ovando we check with the fly-shop to see if they knew anything about this float (they didn't), then call Leroy for a shuttle, they were awesome, even parked the truck overnight in their yard so it didn't have to stay for 2 days at the take-out. time to go to cedar bridge.

you sure all this is gonna fit?

We loaded the already heavy raft with about 500 pounds of gear (beer is heavy, even bud light, which Jim prefers)  We have done the first section, Cedar Meadow to Potter bridge before. It's about 3 miles on the road but 6 on the river. Fishing was slow but, Jim did hook a nice fish nymphing and while he was reeling him in another fish ate his second fly! Now he has two fish on. He did manage to land the smaller one of about 17 inches.  Don't get me wrong,  I have seen doubles before but never two fish that big.

The Blackfoot is awesome!

As we float past Potter bridge, I am just hoping we don't have to portage our big old boat too far.  Once you get out of around the corner from Potter bridge there are a few good holes and one of the most picturesque farms you will ever see. then it's into a canyon section that is one shallow riffle with big rocks to dodge, unfortunately it was getting towards evening and it was hard to see the rocks just under the surface so we spent quite a bit of time out of the boat pushing and pulling.  This section was also not the best fishing ever. Glad I did it, don't know if we'll back. 

You sure thats a fish , I can barely see it.

Finally we saw a couple of fisherman ahead, usually not a great sight, but this time a sure sign we were getting near River Junction. Here, the Blackfoot picks up the North Fork of the Blackfoot, and it will be easier to float with almost twice as much water.  Woot Woot we made it! Kinda feel like Lewis and a Clark....... kinda. We set up camp just below the junction, ate some tasty camping food, then tried to catch one of the fish that were rising all around our boat. Didn't have what they wanted, however. Oh well I'll just have to drink one more Double Haul IPA and turn in, could be worse.

Fish on!

 

         Day 2  We are out with all the guides,  the first boat passes our camp at 8 am.  Almost makes me wish we were back in the unknown section dodging rocks......almost. There is a super cool canyon section of the river between river junction and Scotty Brown bridge. I was rowing, Jim was nymphing (he loves to nymph, and will tell you that fish eat 90 percent of their food underwater anytime you ask), when all of a sudden I see a ginormous bug splash into the river, Salmon fly!  He struggles on the surface for a few seconds. then, chomp! Gets eaten! That's all I needed to see. We rig one of the rods with a big bug. First cast... fish. then another. for about the next two hours it's on!

we caught a few like this!

The Blackfoot is one of my favorite rivers in Montana to fish, because it flows through an area while not remote is definitely rural.  As my friend (and world famous folk musician John Dunnigan says, "through pastures heavy in hay" in his song about swimming, he means fishing, holes) This stretch is super fun to fish, because the river bed is basically bedrock. Over the years cracks have developed in the rock, and anytime you float your fly over these cracks the fish will come up and eat it. We land a bunch of nice cutties, then we are out of the canyon and its over as fast as it started.

After that we had to switch to small mayflies and of course the nymphing rod in order to catch a few more fish, if we wanted to stay out until evening it would probably get good again, but our beer supply is running low. as in no more, so it's time to call it a day and the end of my awesome four day, double weekend.