Fishing in the Rockies

by JOHN HODGDON BRADLEY

1

As the pressure on Eastern trout streams grows heavier year by year, more and more fishermen are discovering the Rocky Mountains. They are learning that in the Rockies they can find a vastly greater number and variety of streams than they can find at home, less brush and fewer insect pests, a longer fishing season with more and larger trout, less pollution, fewer posted and privately leased waters, more exciting scenery and pleasant weather.

It would be unfortunate, however, for a newcomer to assume that this Paradise contains no serpents. Overfishing, overgrazing, overirrigating, and other abuses exact their toll from the Rocky Mountain trout stream. It is almost as easy in the West as in the East to get on poor water, or on good water at the wrong season. Western streams, like Eastern si reams, are adversely affected by a variety of weather and water conditions.

The Eastern fisherman may have a preconceived notion that the fishing in the Rockies is almost too fast to be fun. Actually the Rockies contain not only some depleted streams but also some of the most temperamental trout on earth. In the spring creeks which feed the larger rivers, the trout are often extremely wary and selective in their feeding. Spring-creek fish may be quite as skeptical as any old brown in the Esopus who has seen everything and wants nothing that Abercrombie & Filch have to offer.

The spring creeks of the Rockies are delectable little streams rising from springs along the sides of the major rivers. They wander independently over the flood plains of their larger neighbors for at most a few miles before joining them. They are trout water all the way. An ideal trout stream, according to Viscount Grey, has “broad shallows here and there, but with plenty of deep stretches, not stagnant, but with a good current all down them; its breadth in the deeper parts should be about as much as can be cast across by a single-handed rod, and considerably more on the shallows where wading is possible.” The larger spring creeks of the Rockies meet these specifications perfectly.

They resemble the chalk streams of England in other ways too. Moss and weeds which increase as the season advances give the trout ample food, cover, and more than a fighting chance for their lives when hooked. Many trout of one to three pounds, and a few up to five and six pounds, stay in these creeks the year found. The water is cold and of even flow all year, low and clear as air even in spring when other streams are high and murky.

Spring-creek trout are greedy but discriminating feeders. It is not uncommon during a hatch to sec a dozen good fish feeding in a single small pool. The flies that hatch along these creeks in summer are typically small; the trout will generally rise only to a small artificial on a long fine leader. They show a marked preference for the color as well as the size of the naturals which are on the water, and it is difficult to tempt them with any artificial when no natural hatch is in progress. They are extremely sensitive to splash, shadow, and drag — a real challenge to the experienced fly-fisherman. I have seen crack Eastern anglers so happy in the discovery of a Rocky Mountain spring creek that they spent their entire vacations fishing a few hundred yards of water.

The tactics which are best for the spring creeks are not necessarily the best for the larger rivers into which they flow. While usually less cautious and selective, the trout in the larger waters are more widely scattered and more erratic in their feeding periods and habits. You can sometimes fish hard for days at a time on these larger streams without taking more than one or two good fish each day; on other days you can take a weight limit of twopound trout from a single pool.

Most newcomers to the Rockies need some time to adjust their thinking to the scale of the country. Accustomed to shorter, smaller streams with fewer and better-educated trout, they are likely to fish too little water too intensively. Though I am on controversial ground here, I believe that in the Rockies generally the first cast to a good spot is the best cast, and that it is a waste of time to work long over water which should have, but has not, produced. Day in and day out, it is my observation — on the larger streams — that the fly-fisherman who covers the most water catches the most fish.

While rainbows love to battle stiff currents and are often found in or close to white water, the cutthroats and browns are more likely to be in the glides than in the runs and riffles. They are often in the slow water along the bank and in the choppy eddies in the lee of the heads of pools. They are sometimes even deep in the dead water adjacent to the rips at the ends of points, islands, and bars. Inexperienced anglers are inclined to put their feet rather than their flies in these quieter waters where the veterans take most of their fish. Incidentally, it would be well at the start for the newcomer to take a good look at the veteran, even though he might be shocked by what he sees.

2

WHEN I first began to fish the trout streams of the Rockies in the summer of 1920, I saw not a single dry fly in use or for sale anywhere in Wyoming or Montana. Fly rods, to be sure, were in general use but few ever had a fly attached to them. Grasshoppers, worms, minnows, hellgrammites, salmon eggs, and spinners were the universally popular lures. Such fly-fishermen as I met were almost invariably fishing wet with a snelled Grey Hackle on the terminal loop of a heavy leader, and a Royal Coachman for a dropper. If this rig failed to produce results, the fisherman did not change it. He assumed that the trout were not rising.

Native Rocky Mountain angling practices are now generally more sophisticated than they were in 1920, but they are still capable of shocking a purist. Last summer it was my good fortune to be able to fish several streams between New Mexico and Alberta. If I were to paint a picture of the average native Rocky Mountain angler from the many models I saw in action, I would show him as a fly-fisherman rather than a bait fisherman. He would be using a cheap nine-foot rod, a heavy automatic reel, a four-foot leader of about twelve pounds test, and two snelled wet flies. In his hatband there would be half a dozen other flies of different patterns, some of them gross and outlandish. On his shoulder there would be a large leather-bound creel worth nearly as much as all the rest of his outfit.

Before the purist dismisses this man as a comic character, he should look into that creel. Crude though the tackle may be, it works. Though his rod is cheap, the native fly-fisherman of the Rockies is a master at manipulating the two-fly cast. The automatic reel is a convenience without being a threat to the sturdy terminal tackle. Doubtless the short heavy leader and coarsely snelled flies scare away many trout. But the native angler overcomes this handicap with his expert use of currents to present his flies in a convincing manner, and also with his thorough knowledge of the stream.

The mind of this man fits no better than does his tackle into the pattern of traditional fly-fishing. His angling has little literary or academic taint. He is not ashamed to use a fly which would make him a social outcast on the Neversink. He never debates the values of “fancy” and “imitation” flies, nor probes his soul to discover whet her he is a “ presentationist” or something else. He is, in short, a pragmatist with little respect for any point of view except that of the trout.

He often uses conventional flies, particularly such patterns as Black Gnat, Grey Hackle, Ginger Quill, and Royal Coachman, which enjoy reputations as fish-getters in the Rockies. But he uses them without deifying them. Unlike some of his brothers on the leaner streams of the East, he does not become a connoisseur and tier of traditional flies as a compensation for failure to make consistently good catches. He is rather somewhat of a cynic about flies. He suspects that the great multiplicity of patterns is either a hoax or a delusion.

His deviations from the straight and narrow path of orthodoxy are strictly logical. Because the fish are large he uses large flies. Their prototypes are the grasshoppers, bees, grubs, and minnows which large trout like to eat. His preference for flies made of hair rather than feathers is equally logical. They are durable, buoyant, and eminently sensible lures for large trout in fast water, adaptations not to the attitudes of the fisherman but to the appetites of the fish and the conditions of their environment. Trout flies, like men, are judged by their performance rather than their ancestry nearly everywhere in the Rockies.

The typical native fly-fisherman of the region is faithfully wedded to the wet fly. Practically all his favorite flies fall within the broad category of wet flies, bucktails, and streamers. He walks with the current, quartering his cast downstream and retrieving with jerks through the slicks and along the edges of the riffles and runs.

The dry-fly fisherman in the Rockies is almost invariably a visitor or a local youth. The children of the Rockies have been quick to learn the dry-fly techniques but slow to teach their parents.

Rocky Mountain fly-tiers, on the other hand, have not been wholly indifferent to the possibilities of the surface lure. Missoula, Montana, for example, is the native home of the floating Bunyan Bug. This weird creation is much more like a bass bug than a trout fly. With its large hook and heavy body an inch or more in length, its long whiskers of stiff nylon bristles at right angles to the body, the Bunyan Bug is the perfect target for a purist’s contempt. It is also a target that trout like to shoot at.

There are times in the Rockies, generally while the streams are still high with the meltwater from winter snow, when the rainbows feed in the middle of the heaviest rapids. Under such conditions a conventional dry fly dropped in the white water would be drowned at once; dropped at the edge of the current it would provoke no rise. A Runyan Rug, which would float in the Maelstrom, bounds over the heaviest water like a chip of wood and the rainbows bound after it.

The Wulff flies which are becoming increasingly popular in the Rockies reflect a wider breach in the loyalty to the wet fly. Though their wings and long full tails are made of deer hair and their bodies are relatively heavy, they are true dry flies which definitely suggest large May flies. Originally designed by Lee Wulff, an Easterner, nevertheless they are becoming in the Dan Bailey version as Western as sagebrush and lodgepole pine.

A fly with only sufficient buoyancy for two or three casts over a rising trout in a slow smooth glide of a British chalk stream is not generally satisfactory in the Rockies, where most streams are fast and broken, and feeding fish are difficult to detect. The Wulff flies reflect a frank willingness to sacrifice a certain amount of realism for a greater degree of buoyancy. In the muscular rivers of the Rockies they are ideal. They are not only incomparable floaters, but their visibility under the dazzling light of the Western sky is not equaled by any other fly. Best of all, they are prime favorites with the trout.

Many standard English and Eastern dry flies also work well on Rocky Mountain streams, but the hackles must be stiff and the colors visible in broken water. I personally fish dry whenever it is remotely feasible to do so. I do so despite the fact that bait and spinner fishermen catch larger fish, and wet-fly fishermen more fish when the water is excessively high, turbid, or cold. I know that conditions are often right for the dry fly in the Rockies; that when they are right I can make at least as good a catch as the next fellow — and have a great deal more fun doing it.

My attitude in this matter is that of many Eastern fishermen. Native anglers, on the other hand, leave dry flies pretty much to the visitors. If there were no tourists the Rooky Mountain flytier would probably tie no dry flies at all. Most of his local customers are quite content with their Ginger Quills and Woolly Worms.

There was a time, and not so long ago, when one seldom saw an out-of-state car parked by a Rocky Mountain trout stream. Today one is as likely to meet an Oklahoman as a New Mexican on the banks of the upper Rio Grande. Dudes from the Middle West swarm with the willow flies to the Gunnison of Colorado. The Madison of Montana is almost as heavily fished as the Willowemoc of New York, and not a few of the fishermen are from New York and Pennsylvania. Each summer an increasing number of visitors, many of them novices, are casting flies and catching trout in Rocky Mountain streams.

3

FEWER than a dozen transcontinental highways carry most tourists across the Rockies. Every one of these highways gives easy access to superb trout fishing. For many miles U. S. 2, up by the Canadian border, follows the Flathead and Kootenai Rivers, two of the best trout streams in the Montana Rockies. Farther south, U. .S. 10 and Alt. 10 trail the Clark Fork of the Columbia. In northern Wyoming, U. S. 14 skirts some of the best water in the Big Horn range and passes through one of the most spectacularly beautiful canyons in the entire West. E.S. 20 in Idaho opens up some of the best reaches on the Upper Snake.

In the southern Rockies, U.S. 30 touches several good feeder streams in lower Wyoming and Idaho; U.S. 40 parallels the Upper Colorado and Yampa Rivers in Colorado. Farther south, U.S. 50 and the world-renowned Gunnison River run side by side for many miles. U.S. 66, though south of the best trout streams, crosses roads which lead to good small waters and to the magnificent scenery of northern New Mexico.

The highways that follow the north-south grain of the Rockies lead to even greater riches. Any Federal highway with a number that contains the digits 8 or 9 will take you to excellent fishing. Try U.S. 285 from Santa Fe to Denver, with particular attention to the Los Pinos and Conejos Rivers near the New Mexico-Colorado line. Try U.S. 191, 189, 187, 93, 89, or 91 in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. All these highways are for the most part well surfaced, uncongested, and magnificently scenic. ’They would be amply worth while even without the fishing.

Perhaps the best of all north-south highways for the fisherman is U.S. 98 between Twin Falls, Idaho, and Missoula, Montana. From this road one can reach such memorable trout waters as Silver Creek and the Wood River near Sun Valley, Idaho; the upper Salmon River and its two superb tributaries, the Pahsimeroi and the Lemhi; the upper Bitterroot River of western Montana. There is enough fishing for a lifetime along this route, but the fisherman must pay a price for it. In my case last summer the price was a nearly complete absence of good places to eat and sleep - and three ruined tires.

Remarkably few resorts of any type are located on the best fishing waters; still fewer are run by and for fishermen. The specialized fishing camp found everywhere in Maine is practically nonexistent in the Rockies. In time I suppose they will appear — as the fishing begins to dwindle. At a dude ranch in the Rockies the visiting angler is likely to find himself with a horse he doesn’t want, at a tariff he can’t afford. He is almost certain to discover meal hours arranged not for his convenience but for the cook’s. And he will be very lucky if he gets even a sample of the best fishing which the Rockies have to offer.

“Big water, big fish” is a general rule in the Rockies, although there are some notable exceptions. Since the major streams are also the major lines of travel, most of them are easily accessible and heavily fished. The trout are relat ively wise and cautious. But a few large streams—much of the South Fork of the Flathead in Montana, for instance, and all the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho—flow through valleys which have not yet been opened to railroads and automobiles. Streams of this type, full of large and innocent troul, are heaven for the angler who wants it fast and easy. Getting there by pack train, on the other hand, is likely to be slow and hard, and is certain to be expensive.

Those who lack the time, money, or fortitude for an extended pack trip can get fast fishing easily by operating from a base camp near the edge of a wilderness area. Take, for example, the Blackfoot. River which flows west into the Clark Fork of the Columbia between Helena and Missoula, Montana. Thanks to the two near-by cities, to a good highway along most of its reach, and to a liberal sprinkling of dude ranches, the main Blackfoot is no longer the superb trout stream it once was. The North Fork of the Blackfoot, however, is quite another story. It is heavily stocked with good-sized trout which the rankest amateur can catch. The best water on this stream can be reached in a few hours — on foot or horseback — from the civilized end of an excellent Forest Service trail. Those few hours are likely to spell the difference between a heavy creel and a heavy heart.

I shall never forget my first evening on one of t he larger wilderness streams of the Rockies when I took seven three-pound cutthroats on seven casts, without changing my position except to land the fish. I shall never forget the cheer of campfires in lonely forests, the calm of night on the peaks. Such are the traditional satisfactions of Western living and I do not undervalue them. Yet as the years go by I find that I do less and less wilderness fishing. I find that tougher streams in easier country provide better sport.

One of the greatest advantages of Rocky Mountain fishing is that a fisherman need not tie himself to a single stream or to a single stretch on a stream. There are many strategic points from which roads radiate to a variet y of good trout waters. The towns of Creede and Gunnison in Colorado, for example, give access to several of the best small trout streams imaginable. My favorite center for fishing the fine waters of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming is the town of Shell, but Ten Sleep and Sheridan are close to nearly as good fishing and they are considerably more popular and comfortable. The town of West Yellowstone, where Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana meet, and where several of the best feeders of the Columbia and Missouri are within easy driving distance, is one of the choice locations in the Rockies for a fisherman. But many other places have magic names: Salmon, Idaho; Livingston and Kalispell, Montana; Kamloops, British Columbia— take note.

4

IN the Rockies the angler not only has much more water to fish but much more time to fish it. The legal fishing season is closed in most Eastern states by August or September, but it is open through September and October in all the Rocky Mountain states. Several larger streams — the Rio Grande, the Yellowstone, and the Kootenai, for example— are never closed to trout fishermen.

The natural as well as the legal season is longer in the Rockies. The trout fisherman in Maine must be content on the whole with a few weeks of good fishing in spring when the water is cold, and another few weeks in the fall. The trout fisherman in Montana gets increasingly good fishing from late August through September and well into October—the pleasantest part of the year to be outdoors — after most Eastern fishermen have stored their tackle for the winter. The die-hard can fish right through the winter on the open rivers of the Rockies. He can take trout and whitefish on spinners, occasionally on flies, in November, December, and even in January and February when the water is as cold as 32° F. He can get some of the best fishing of the year on these streams in March and April before the high water arrives.

The Rockies, to be sure, are somewhat short on the late April and early May fishing which makes winter endurable for so many Eastern fishermen. Because the native cutthroat and rainbow trout are spring spawners, most of the mountain states do not open their streams until mid-May or later. Late April and early May, however, are the unloved season of high water on many of the better streams (also wood tick time with its threat of spotted fever), and the fly-fisherman is bound to be unhappy anyway. He can assuage his grief with the thought of the five solid months — from late May to November — when throughout the Rockies the law will allow him to fish.

Nature, unfortunately, is less liberal than the legislature, and its laws are more complex. Each stream, in fact, makes its own law, which in turn makes the problem of when to fish a real one. It is easy to get on good water at the wrong time. Few Rocky Mountain streams enjoy a reputation comparable to that of the Test, the Beaver Kill, or the Nipigon. The Firehole and the Madison in Yellowstone Park, however, are exceptions. They are widely and justly noted, and yet I suspect that they have bred more disappointment than any other trout waters in the Rockies. Roth are early streams with productive peaks in late June. During July and August, the peak months for Park visitors, these streams are at their worst.

It is dangerous to generalize about the best season for stream fishing in the Rockies. There, as elsewhere, such variable factors as height, speed, turbidity, and temperature of the water, insect hatches, and trout migrations may profoundly affect the fishing on a given stream at a given time. In addition there are the factors which are peculiar to regions of high relief. Topographic, climatic, and biologic conditions may vary widely within a relatively small area. The quality and type of fishing, even the species of fish, may vary widely as a result, not only from stream to stream but from place to place on the same stream.

In the Yellowstone Park area, for example, one can identify five of the seven major life zones which lie between the equator and the poles. The Yellowstone River traverses all five of these zones from its source feeders in the Arctic-Alpine uplands south of the Park to where it leaves the mountains on an Upper Sonoran plain near Livingston, Montana. The trout in these different zones live in waters of different temperatures and speeds, with different shore and bottom conditions and different food.

From its source to Yellowstone Lake the Yellowstone River is a little-known wilderness stream, with so many native cutthroat trout that fast fishing can be taken for granted regardless of the season. From the Lake to Gardiner the river is deep and, except in the Canyon, of fairly unbroken current. The fish in this stretch run to rainbows and rainbowcutthroat hybrids which are likely to rise best in July. Between Gardiner and Livingston, brown trout become increasingly abundant. The fishing is seldom good before mid-July, is better by midAugust, and is best in September.

Though not much is known about trout migrations (other than spawning runs) in Rocky Mountain streams, they are a far less important factor in determining the season of best fishing than they are in the warmer interior streams of the East and in the tidal streams of the Pacific coast. The cool water which stimulates summer feeding in the Rockies seems also to retard summer wandering. Trout at this season do not desert the body of the streams for the spring holes, as they do in many Eastern localities, nor do they abandon the streams entirely for the cooler depths of lakes.

Marked summer migrations which are not noticeably related to spawning do occur here and there in the Rockies. The July run of big bull trout (Dolly Varden to the Easterner) from Flathead Lake into the North Fork of the Flathead River is an event which many Glacier Park fishermen eagerly await. Generally, however, the fisherman in the Rockies can neglect migrations. He can assume that any good pool will contain good fish at any time during the open season —provided, of course, that other fishermen have not done too thorough a job before him.

He can also generally assume that he will not be overbedeviled by muddy water during the summer and autumn months. Placer mining on feeder streams, which may spoil the early fishing, subsides in most areas as the water supply shrinks with the advancing season. Summer rains are relatively infrequent and short-lived; badly eroding streamsides, except in the extreme southern Rockies, are relatively rare.

Despite its many aspects, the general problem of when to fish in the Rockies can be solved as simply, as satisfactorily, and in exactly the same way as the problem of where to fish. By choosing some strategic point as a base, the visiting angler can find a stream which is both in prime condition and within comfortable range during any part of the fishing season.

In the Yellowstone Park area, for example, the June fisherman can get superb fly-fishing on the Madison, Gibbon, and Firehole Rivers within the borders of the Park. The July fisherman can do very well on the North Fork of the Snake, the Teton, the Boulder, and that part of the Yellowstone which flows through the Park. In August the Gallatinand at times the Madison north of the Park — is good. In September and early October the Yellowstone River north of the Park, as well as the North Fork and the South Fork of the Snake, is at its peak. There are many other points where a comparable range of choice is possible.

All the larger towns in the Rockies contain tackle shops whose owners have good reasons for helping the visitor catch fish. These men can supply the indispensable specific and timely information about the better streams and seasons. They know the secondary roads that wander away from the main highways to hidden bonanzas of beauty and sport in the hills. They know the ranchers who are friendly to fishermen, the little dirt tracks through the corrals and over the fields to the hot spots on the major rivers. If you look like a person who will shut the gates, the man in the tackle shop will almost certainly tell you where to find them and when to use them.