Northwest Fishing Reports

Made the trek to big sky country this Thanksgiving! My family recently moved to a place on the Clark Fork River near Missoula so I decided to stash some gear in the trunk in case I decided to fish . Knowing full well that it is a fantastic trout river, I couldnt pass up the opportunity to give it a go. Although I am a bass and salmon kind of guy, the wild trout of the rockies were calling my name. I ended up fishing with my younger cousins and we had a blast catching and releasing dozens of beautiful browns,bows,and cutts. I introduced them to some salmon techniques that turned out to be sucessful on those hard fighting big river trout as well . Included pics of a couple browns that represent the average size fish we were catching. Great fishing in my book, even if they were just trout.....LOL. . ENJOY!

Nice looking fish. Montana trout are pretty tasty too!!

Augwen wrote:Nice looking fish. Montana trout are pretty tasty too!!

I bet they are tasty! One of my cousins did end up keeping one fish that wasnt going to make it. It was a rainbow, about 20", inhaled the vibrax so deep we could hardly see it. My grandfather ended up having that one for breakfast the next morning.

Montana Coho

that looks and sounds like a better time then any turkey dinner

Augwen wrote:Montana Coho

The meat was indeed on par with a good silver. Grandpa said it was delicious. Maybe next time I will have one as well, i will just have to set aside my snooty washington preference for fresh salmon.

drysuperfly52 wrote:that looks and sounds like a better time then any turkey dinner

A day like that coupled with an outstanding Thanksgiving spread and i was in heaven for sure. Cant wait for next year!

We drive by the Clark every time we visit my son in Helena. Beautiful water!

It is very beautiful country Mike! Much different than our rivers here in Washington. The stretch of river we were fishing was a challenge to read for me. The river was WIDE,SHALLOW,FLAT,and straight as an arrow. Not to mention, gin clear water with blue bird skies made for skittish fish. You had to break it down on the micro scale and fish every tiny riffle to find fish. I was amazed every time I hooked up as to where the fish was holding. A different and challenging experience for sure.

And that is why they call it fishing

Good lookin' fish!

i fish the clark fork near st regis with my dad and uncle just about every year, catch everything from browns, to rainbows to westlope cutties to cuttbows to dollies. the fish average like 3 pounds, love that place!

I lived on the C.F. not far from St. Regis for 16 yrs. Pretty much had the river to myself. I'm guessing by the number of browns that JS was fishing the other side of Missou. I miss everything but the Winters!