Brown's Lake and the hogs

A friend from Team Cocktails has boasted about the monster rainbow trout that he regularly pulls out of Brown's Lake on the fly for quite some time. While not belittling the trout I have pulled out of the river, he certainly implied that the handshake a 12'' trout delivers is drastically different from the "hello sir, my name is monster trout" handshake a 20" football-shaped rainbow provides. So, this past weekend, with the area rivers flowing high and turbid, my friend took me out on his boat on Brown's Lake. We trolled the shoreline and structure with a seven-weight rods and a mystery fly. While not a standard fly fishing method, it certainly proved effective, as we pulled 2 to 3 pound 16 inchers with regularity. Both of us were able to land hogs in the form of 20'' Kamloops-strain rainbows stocked in Brown's Lake. According to my friend, our day was relatively average for Brown's Lake, if not below average. The highlight and lowlight of the day occurred when my friend hooked into a 30'' rainbow (that was extremely colorful for a lake rainbow - leading me to believe that it was a broodstock). On 5 pound test, my friend was able to bring the rainbow within arm's length of the boat. Using the ghost net (which can hold a 24'' fish), I tried to scoop the hog into the net. But, I was denied. Immediately following the net refusal, the potential 10 pounder snapped off the magic fly and returned to the depths of Brown's Lake. I sat with my hands overboard, afraid to look back at my friend for fear that he might toss me lakeward after missing a golden chance to net the monster. Afterwards, we decided that if he fails to catch a rainbow of equal or greater size in the next 20 years, he is free to contact me and give me a swift, vengeful punch. Seems to be fair.

the fight

the fish

the release

team cocktails goes fishing

evening on brown's lake

End of the semester...more fishing...less blogging

With the spring semester coming to a close a week and a half ago, I decided to use my free time to fish and blogging about fishing took a backseat. Since my last post, I have fished the Blackfoot twice (with mixed results), upper Rock Creek and the west fork of Rock Creek, and Brown's Lake. With the discharge of Rock Creek on the rise, my first trip took me to the Blackfoot with a Red Sox fan and his trusty dog. On our way up to the Johnsrud section of the Blackfoot, we shared stories of frustration regarding this fabled river. I had fished it a couple times with absolutely no luck. Not a fish. Not a nibble. Not a nothing. It seemed as though the Blackfoot had displayed a similar reluctance to produce fish for my friend. We threw everything into the river and caught three tiny rainbows between the two of us. Indeed, after a day of fishing the Blackfoot, I had a whopping six inches of rainbow trout to show for it. Even though it was my first trout from the Blackfoot, I neglected to take a picture of the monster. We returned to Missoula defeated, as I think we both expected.

the mighty mighty blackfoot

A couple weekends later, the tortured Red Sox fan, his friend, the same trusty dog, and I made a weekend trip up to upper Rock Creek. The first day was spent exploring the west fork of Rock Creek and upper Rock Creek. The west fork produced a single nibble and no fish. On upper Rock Creek, we camped out near several diversion dams and associated downstream pools. With a wooly and a san juan rig, the white David Ortiz pulled several upper Rock Creek westslope cuttie slabs (16 to 18 inches). I was unsuccessful. The next morning, we made our way down to Gillies Bridge and walked upstream from there. I caught three whitefish, a cutbow/westslope cuttie, and two brown trout. Youkilis (sans the goatee) caught a couple whitefish. Oh yeah, it snowed and it was May. In addition, during our time at the cabin, we completed a 100 piece puzzle of the United States and kindly left it completed for the next inhabitants. Clearly, we are gentleman and should be lauded for saving those poor souls a solid 15 minutes of their life. Nobel Peace prize please?

cutbow in the ghost net

brown trout release

upper rock creek brown

east fork of rock creek

ponderosa pine on upper rock creek

100-piece puzzle of the US of A. Enjoy.

The following weekend, Team Cocktails, a co-rec softball team I happen to play for, took a weekend camping trip up on the blackfoot at Thibodeau Campground. I fished the majority of the day on Saturday. While the river was up, it was not filled with suspended sediment and several hatches occurred throughout the day. I finally saw success on the Blackfoot. I took 11 cutbows (averaging around 11") on streamers and dries, one 20" whitefish on a caddis pupa, and a 22" sucker on a caddis pupa. I also discovered that my waders may have developed a leak in the neoprene bootie portion. Hopefully, I have successfully patched the leak or the waders may make a trip back to Orvis land because it is too soon for these new waders to be leaking.

blackfoot at thibodeau campground

morning fog at thibodeau

morning fog over the blackfoot

22" sucker

20'' whitefish

blackfoot cutbow

The visit to Brown's Lake occurred after the end of the semester and deserves a separate post. Post to follow shortly.

3 cutbows, 1 rainbow, 1 brown trout, 5 whitefish and bunch of dogs

Last Monday, I went up to upper Rock Creek with four friends and four dogs. It was the fly-fishing, "Bumpus Family" style. Enjoy the video with help from my friend Laura on the camera.


fly fishing and the bumpus dogs from Ivan Orsic on Vimeo.

23 and unmatching the hatch

I made my way back up to Upper Rock Creek again this week. I was rewarded handsomely with 23 fish: 14 cutbow, five cutthroat, one brown trout, and three whitefish. The first three hours of the day were spent nymphing - that accounted for 10 of the 23 fish. Most of the fish caught while nymphing were between 10'' and 13''. I caught them on black bead head midge nymphs, griffith's gnats fished subsurface, and double bead head black stonefly nymphs. Once one o'clock rolled around, the surface activity had picked up enough steam that I ended up fishing the surface for the rest of the day. I started out fishing a skwala dry with a griffith's gnat off of the back end with some success. But, after a couple of refusals (fish looking at the fly, but refusing to take the fly), I switched my tactics. With black stoneflies hatching in mass, midges lining the surface, and a couple of stray skwalas on the banks, I unmatched the hatch and fished a fat green drake mayfly dry. I took my three largest fish of the day on the green drake. Besides the fishing, nothing exciting happened. No moose, no dead bald eagles, no bears - all in all, a day a worried parent or girlfriend would be pleased with. Enjoy the pictures and the video. Side note: I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow a friend's waterproof camera, so enjoy the underwater shots.


Upper Rock Creek - 4.12 from Ivan Orsic on Vimeo.

 16'' Westslope Cutthroat/Cutbow

15'' Cuttie/Cutbow

Cutbow Release

14'' Brown Trout

Cutbow Release

Cuttie in the ghost net

Upper Rock Creek cutbow

12'' Cuttie

Gillies Bridge Cuttie

American Dipper

American Dipper

Cutbow Reflection

Cutbow in the Ghost net

American Kestrel

Cabin 4 Rent?

6 fish, 2 moose, a herd of elk, and a dead bald eagle

As promised, there is a short story associated with the pictures of a dead bald eagle that have been circling the interwebs. After fishing Upper Rock Creek on Saturday, my friend and I started to head back to the truck. As we wandered back downstream, our path strayed from the creek with the presence of two moose stream-side. Heading away from the stream, we ducked down into a seasonally active side channel. Coming up on the other side of the side channel and onto the floodplain, I noticed a large brown shape lying on the ground about 10 feet away from us. We went over to inspect the shape and indeed it was a deceased bald eagle.

The magnificent bird was positioned as you see it in the pictures above, on its back, head turned to the left, wings holding stiff to the side. After closer examination, it's eyes were missing and the head appeared to be empty. That being said, I didn't get too close to peer in to it's skull. Based on the once over I gave the bird, there were no obvious signs that the bird had been killed (no gaping wounds). The portion of the river where the bird was found appeared to be colder than the downstream reaches. The floodplain was still frozen and patches of ice and snow still lined the banks of the river. Based on the presence of snow and the frozen ground, this portion of the river could be losing water to groundwater. When rivers lose water to groundwater, surface water temps are often much colder during the winter and hotter during summer. As such, my friend and I theorized that the eagle may have been dead for quite some time. Maybe it froze over winter and its plumage was maintained without significant damage. Those are just theories. I reported the "incident" to the Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks at the urging of some classmates. It is in their hands now.

The fishing was decent that day. I caught six. Two cutthroat, three whitefish, and a brown trout. I did catch a football sized 17-18'' lady cutthroat. She was so impregnated with eggs, I could barely wrap my hand around one side of her. If one were to point their middle finger and thumb in opposing directions and their hands were as large/small as mine, that would be a reasonable estimate for the half of the girth of this fish. As I went to pose for a picture with the soon-to-be mama cuttie, her will to pro-create drove her to resist my wishes to record her existence and she escaped my grasp and returned to her lair underneath an overhanging willow. Enjoy the rest of the pictures.

Upper Rock Creek Brown Trout

Upper Rock Creek - 4.10

Elk Grazing at dusk - Upper Rock Creek

A Moose - I swear