River Journal

River Journal

PFS part-timer Phil Herne and I hit Depuy's on Saturday to see about getting some big rainbows or at least medium-sized ones on dry flies. The weather didn't cooperate --it was windy and sunny most of the time, bad for fishing in general and especially bad for BWO. We each got about fifteen fish altogether, and I lost way too many. Phil's largest fish was only fifteen inches, which disappointed him, though I watched him sight-cast to the fish, which was sitting in a narrow deep slot downstream from the lower spawning closure, and that was pretty cool. I lost at least three fish over sixteen inches, all of which I saw, and I finally landed one good one, a fat male rainbow of a bit over eighteen inches. I kept muttering "dongetoffdongetoffdongetoff!" It didn't, which means the mantra must have worked.

I like fishing the spring creeks, since there's always the chance of a monster and it's really the only way of fishing flat, easy to reach water with good hatches and big fish without elbowing your way onto the water on Soda Butte or the Lamar. Being more used to those streams than the creeks (free is a lot cheaper than $40-100), it always feels strange to be able to stroll down to at least my second choice of a place to fish without worrying too much about getting crowded out.

On the other hand, there's a vague sense of fishing in one of the "pay-to-play" fisheries of my youth. Right down to the manicured lawns and benches, there's a vague sense that the creeks are artificial. They are of course, since they're managed for big, wild fish and, unlike most private water in the West, the cattle are kept off. Depuy's is the most unnatural, since it's actually a diversion of Armstrong's Creek water into an old river channel, putting it essentially in the same category as an irrigation ditch.

Perhaps the artificialness of the fishery is actually appropriate. The fish in the creeks are mostly rainbows and browns, both non-natives, and the very existence of private water managed for big, wild fish seems alien to a native of the lower Midwest, where trout are either big or wild but seldom both.

That big rainbow was the largest fish I've caught so far this year, and it might be the biggest I catch on a small (#18) fly. All in all, not a bad start.

Note: we've always guided on the spring creeks, but we haven't made a habit of it. We're looking to change that over the next few seasons. For more info, click here. There are a few pics from my trip --I need to get some more ASAP. Want to pay me to help you star in them?

I grew up fishing the Ozark spring creeks for stocked trout, and while I don't fish them during the regular put and take season I like to fish them during the winter catch and release season, when larger holdover rainbows and browns are present, as well as a few bass coming up into the relatively warm spring water from the rivers into which the creeks feed. In addition to some impressive holdover fish, there are simply A LOT of fish, and they're hungry. Last year my dad and I combined for over 300 fish in two days, for example.

This year wasn't quite that good, but I still got over fifty on Friday and about 25 on Saturday, plus a couple of rock bass (goggle-eye) while trying for a smallmouth or two. I also caught the two largest fish, one rainbow around 18" and another a hair under 20, though my dad hooked a significant brown. There seemed to be fewer larger fish present than in the past, an artifact I think of the new regs in the creek and the Niangua River downstream, that allow browns over 15" to be kept as "trophies." The old rule has an 18" minimum, which makes a lot more sense. A 15" brown is a big fish, especially for a region in which most trout are 8-13" stocked rainbows, but it's no trophy. Another problem with the change is that a 15" brown is just getting large enough to exclusively eat the abundant suckers, chubs, sculpins, and large crawfish that inhabit Ozark rivers and streams, at which point they begin growing in a hurry. In other words, not only are the fish between 15 and 18 inches getting caught out, it's also more difficult for a trout to grow larger than 18 inches because they can now be kept just as they're getting big enough to really pack on the pounds. I think the 12-15 pound fish that once were occasionally caught in the creek and river are now things of the past, alas.

At any rate, I caught a pretty good number of trout, including a couple of good ones, though I didn't get anything huge. The top fly was a light brown San Juan worm, a fly I typically catch a lot of stockers on, even long after they're stocked. Maybe it looks like Purina Trout Chow, maybe it looks like a worm. It hardly matters. I have to admit that it was nice catching a bunch of rainbows at short range (I sight-fished to probably 50% of the trout I caught) from a stream that used to be my home water, often in sight of my dad. On balance, though, I'm glad I only make one trip to the Ozark creeks every year. Out here the fishing is more varied, the chances for wild fish infinitely higher, and the chances for solid trout (though not necessarily for huge ones) are higher. There's also a lot fewer people, which is really appealing when you consider that it's considered entirely proper in the Ozarks for someone to stand fifteen feet away from you or even to walk through the riffle you're fishing if it happens to be the easiest way to get to a spot they want to fish. Grrr...

Oh, why no pics? I lost my lens cap fifteen minutes in and didn't want to damage my good dSLR. I still had my little waterproof Pentax and thought I got a picture of the 18" rainbow, but my cousin didn't quite squeeze the shutter --the click he heard was just the focus. Ah well, I had witnesses to the fish.

Contact Information
Phone:	(406) 848-7314
Address:	PO Box 196 202 Second Street South (US-89) Gardiner, MT 59030
E-Mail:	Richard Parks, Owner Walter Wiese, Head Guide