Last Roadtrip of the Year

To make a long story short, one could not turn water into wine and instead turned it into cold Coors Light. The cold fertile waters of the Skeena will have to wait until another year when wallet is filled with more then receipts. The plan changed to a roadtrip to visit some buddies in Montana, catch a Brown Trout before it finds a Fall Partner then go visit some river in Idaho where pigmy steelhead have to travel 600 plus miles to get to.















Tamarack in the Hills of Montana.














The short cold Fall days turned to the beginning of Winter in the Rockies and the drive slowed to the pace of snow and ice filled passes and rollovers. Seeing good friends along the way and staying in towns along the way made the drive seem shorter and the lack of tourists made the scenery in Fall colors a different perspective of what I have seen while making fishing trips in the Spring and Summer months.














Ian Majszak lecturing us on good photography.

Each day brought a different river and scenery to the menu. The trout seemed to target the same thing specifically no matter where we were. Fish were caught and good times were had. Though after a few days and seeing freezing guides every morning I could not help but look into the future and what this winter will bring while in search of Winter Steelhead that are just starting to trickle in on the West side of the Cascades.













Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout from a Montana Spring Creek. Note the talon marks from a raptor.

With the weather turning colder and a forecast of 15 degree in the location in Idaho, we made yet another change of plans to yet another venue and one I know well. After yet another long drive through two states we found ourselves on the big river once again. We spent a couple days enjoying the last fruits of Fall then came home to the smiles of our families.















Rick Matney with a Montana Steelhead. If lake run rainbows in the Great Lakes are Steelhead, then this lake run fish in Montana is no different.

Though not the trip I was looking forward to and planning for a year, getting out of Dodge before Seasonal Effective Disorder set in was a must, and like always, lots of things were learned on the river and road to make it worth the carbon footprint.















Classic wets still work just under the surface in the cold!!!