Finally got to fish in Montana! After years of visiting my son at college, this year I loaded the pontoon on top of the truck and drove it out to Great Falls. We planned to fish the Missouri River, which is renowned for it's blue ribbon fishing. We fished Saturday and Sunday.

As luck would have it, Montana was hit by a very uncharacteristic cold, wet front that stuck around. Saturday was downright Pacific Northwest miserable, but throw in the Montana winds to make it unbearable. Sunday was a little better as the rain and winds diminished, but still no walk in the park.

My original plan was to fly fish, but it became quickly obvious that between my son Matt having never fly fished before, and the winds blowing at 15-20mph that this plan was a dud. Fortunately I had brought along a couple spinning rods and an assortment of spinners, so the weekend was not lost.

The first day we fished the canyon area, from the Stickney Creek launch to the take out at Prewett takeout (11.4 miles) Sunday we fished from a mile above Wolf Creek to Stickney Creek launch (7 miles) Both days the current moved us along at a good 2mph, which was fine by me as it was COLD!

Anyway, while the action was not hot, we did manage to catch a nice selection of rainbows and beautiful brown trout each day. I enjoyed watching Matt catch fish, and caught a few myself. The scenery is amazing, especially the Canyon drift. The river is an easy drift with no technically difficulties to deal with, so we could float and take it all in.

Although it wasn't the best weather-wise, I now know the launch areas and am already planning to return in September for another round. I better, because I left my pontoon in Matt's garage!

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