After returning home from Italy, we were really feeling the call of Montana, which is part of our summer tradition. We couldn't let tradition fall by the wayside. We noticed a ruptured sebaceous cyst on Birch the day we picked him up from boarding, and it was a race against the clock to get it healed by the time we were leaving for Montana in a week. Luckily dogs heal pretty quickly, and his wound closed and was strongly scabbed over by the time we left, though we still made him wear his Dolly Parton t-shirt to keep him from trying to lick the scab. We were not going to risk his health, even for tradition.
We set out from Olympia after each getting off work a little early on Thursday. Typically we drive to Missoula and stay the night and catch a half day on the Madison after sleeping in till mid-morning. This time, we did not have that option as the only spring creek days available were Friday and Sunday with a day to fish elsewhere in between. We resigned ourselves to the fact it was going to be a trip with little sleep. We rolled into our rental outside of Livingston around 3:00 am and after unpacking and settling in, we were in bed close to 4:00 am. The alarm went off around 6:45, and we made breakfast before heading to the creek to check in around 8:00 am. We prefer to get to the creek earlier, but we had to sacrifice for a little sleep, so we were surveying for fish around 9:00 am. Reading the creek is always a fun challenge, and eventually we were in to some fish around 11:30 when I caught my first rainbow. In the back of my head of course I was thinking, 1/3 of the way to the spring creek slam, since I missed out on it the last two years. Mid-afternoon, we took a lunch break and parked the truck on the banks of the Yellowstone where we relaxed and enjoyed a little bit of shade. We started fishing again around two or three, but things were a little slow until around 4:30 when Shaun caught a beautiful Yellowstone cutthroat. I picked up a handsome brown just after 5:00 (2/3 for those keeping track). We fished for another hour or so, but by this time, the lack of sleep was really hitting us, so we headed back to the house for dinner and straight to bed.
With our gap day, we decided to head over to fish the Gallatin. We hooked into a lot of fish but had trouble landing them, which is just how it goes sometimes. I did manage a beautiful rainbow mid-morning. We fished a few more spots in the meadows just outside the park until the winds kicked up to an unenjoyable level, and we headed for home once again with plans to arrive at the creek the next morning by 7:00 am.
After arriving at our desired time, we fished around a few spots and walked a good distance looking for fish. We saw plenty but could not figure out what they were taking. Eventually, around 11:15, I hooked and landed an absolute beauty of a Yellowstone cutthroat, which was a feat in and of itself as that fish took me on an absolute run down the creek, but it also meant I had my spring creek slam- 3/3 species! It didn't matter to me that it happened over the course of two days, I was just happy to have done it. We fished on the rest of the day, trying out some new spots but not having much much actually catching fish (I feel we used up all of our luck this past spring when we caught 20 apiece!), but the fading day yielded some beautiful scenes punctuated by the gathering storm clouds. We even spotted a great horned owl on our walk out of the creek and watched it in awe for a few minutes, satisfied with another successful day on one of our favorite creeks in the world. 
The next day, we decided to do a short hike near Dillon as we made our way toward Missoula and home. We had done this hike before and while it's very steep, it's short, and there are naturally reproducing Arctic Grayling in the lake. We trudged up the trail, not at all accustomed to the altitude but motivated by the prospect of catching some grayling. We were pleased to find no one else at the lake, though it was cooler than we expected. We caught several fish and enjoyed watching a Western Tanager near the lake. Shortly, menacing clouds began to develop overhead, so we made our way back to the truck, not intent on being stuck in a storm at 7500'. We pushed home that night, short on sleep but content with some more wonderful Montana memories. Unfortunately, we found a second ruptured sebaceous cyst on Birch's hip which was particularly nasty and would impact our summer plans for a few more weeks yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment