Montana fly fishing

[MtnGiant]

Where is some good fly fishing near the Calgary/Montana border?
What rivers?
What fish?
Is there camping?
What does it cost to fish there?
Beautiful scenery and fishing is the main goal while camping.
Any insights please.

[cmcclung]

I have only fished 2 montana rivers. The north fork of the flathead, and the madison.

The flathead runs out of B.C. and if you don't care so much about the size of fish, it is a great river. I don't think i have ever caught so many fish in a day, but they're all pretty small. Biggest Cutt of the day was probably 15 inches. All cutthroat except for one bull. And that includes fishing the elk river valley. The cool thing about the north fork of the flathead is it forms the western boundary of glacier national park and as long as you access the river from the park, you're fishing license is included in your park gate admission. Not sure if it's what you're looking for but it was a fun trip. There is also abundant camping all throughout the area, and the scenery is as good as it gets.

The madison river is also great but quite a bit farther. It is down by ennis, Mt. But has some fantastic browns. I have never seen such full combat fishing though. It was crazy how hard it gets hit. We are lucky up here in Canada.

[MtnGiant]

Originally Posted by cmcclung

I have only fished 2 montana rivers. The north fork of the flathead, and the madison.

The flathead runs out of B.C. and if you don't care so much about the size of fish, it is a great river. I don't think i have ever caught so many fish in a day, but they're all pretty small. Biggest Cutt of the day was probably 15 inches. All cutthroat except for one bull. And that includes fishing the elk river valley. The cool thing about the north fork of the flathead is it forms the western boundary of glacier national park and as long as you access the river from the park, you're fishing license is included in your park gate admission. Not sure if it's what you're looking for but it was a fun trip. There is also abundant camping all throughout the area, and the scenery is as good as it gets.

The madison river is also great but quite a bit farther. It is down by ennis, Mt. But has some fantastic browns. I have never seen such full combat fishing though. It was crazy how hard it gets hit. We are lucky up here in Canada.

Thank you
This is exactly the sort of information I am looking for to get me started.

[biggyJ]

Montana is one of my favourite places to go.

License is $60 for a year or $25 for 2 days. If you purchase I license you can camp at any FAS (fishing access site) for $7. They are rough campsites, sometimes water, no Elec, pit toilets.

Close to the border there are a few gems.

flathead( north, middle, south and mainstem). North is the best for wading, like previous guy said. Start in west glacier, go to river and start exploring you will find a ton small cutties. If you drive past west glacier there are a few small tribs that are fun to walk. Bring bear spray.

Stillwater. 30 minutes before whitefish. Only fished it once, access was tough to find, but it looked really good.

Missorri (one of my favorites) 30 minutes south of great falls in a town called Craig. Lots of access and lots of fish. My favourite FAS site us there right on the river and a two minute walk to Joes Bar. Better to float.

Kootenai River (by Libby at far south end of koocanusalake far NW Montana) this is where the state record rainbow came from. Big water with deep pools.

And then in the rest of montana I have fished and enjoyed:
Madison
Yellowstone
Firehole
Gallatin
Gibbon
Rock creek
West fork bitterroot
Bitterroot
Armstrongs spring creek
Clark fork
St. Regis

And then there is:
Bighole
Jefferson
Smith (google thus one, you have to apply to float it)
Blackfoot
Boulder
Swan

Get two books: fishing Montana by Jenny and Brian gossenbacher. This is the bible.

Montana's fishing access sites book.

Yeah it is a pretty cool state.

[cmcclung]

Biggyj, what were you're thoughts on the yellowstone. I have heard good things about that river. Browns right?

[biggyJ]

Yellowstone.

Awesome! Really reminded me of the bow river. Lots of big browns, rainbows and yellowstone cutthroat. (beautiful fish, similar to our cutts but with larger spotting and closer to tail)

We floated it, you could walk it, but like the bow you would need to know where to go. Lots of FAS in that area, but other than that there is a lot of private land, so not sure about access for w and w.

If your in that area, I would definitely spend a couple days in west yellowstone too and explore the park. Within an hour of there, there is some amazing water.

Madison
Firehole
Gallatin
Gibbon
Lamar
Soda butte (take the hour and hike up to the second meadow)
Plus hundreds of small rivers in Yellowstone park.

Any other questions feel free to PM

[MtnGiant]

Awesome
thanks biggy
I saw the "new flyfisher" show on the Missouri river and it looked like great fishing and scenery. That's what made me start inquiring.

[AlbertaAngler]

If you have an apple device. Montana fly fishing magazine has a free app.

[gilbertslake]

Originally Posted by mtngiant

Where is some good fly fishing near the Calgary/Montana border?
What rivers?
What fish?
Is there camping?
What does it cost to fish there?
Beautiful scenery and fishing is the main goal while camping.
Any insights please.

We like the rivers around Missoula, Rock Creek, Clark's Fork and Bitterroot and Blackfoot. If you go on MT 200 from Great Falls, you will be alongside the Blackfoot for quite a long ways. The middle reaches of the Blackfoot are fairly accessible, although you won't find big fish that are in the lower river closer to Missoula.

I like fishing Rock Creek. It has a good fish poplulation, but the big browns don't come back into the river until late in the year. The first 12 miles is the best with decent holding pools. We had good fishing there last fall (first week in October). A caveat though, it is well named as there are a lot of big boulders that can be slippery when wet and it is tricky to wade, but well worth fishing. No huge fish, but some nice hard fighting fish 12-18". There is a fly shop just off US 95 at the start of the narrow road that goes up the valley. He sells maps of the river with named pools.

Clark's fork is a more lazy river as you go further upstream, almost like a UK chalk stream in places. The big problem with Clark's Fork is finding a place to access. We parked near a bridge (South east of Missoula off US 95) over the river and followed the bank upstream and had decent fishing.

There is a nice area on the Bitterroot near Hamilton at the Angler's Roost with fishing access and some nice water, but we drew a blank when we fished it, it was a cold blustery day. I want to go back there in kinder conditions, as it holds some decent fish according to the locals.