By BRYCE MCLEAN and MATT DEVLIN
Well, Winter hasn’t gotten off the couch in awhile. As the sun sets on another perfect day — not quite summer, not quite fall — I lay dreaming, thoughtful, placid.
It seems my window to the world lately has been from a boat, in moving water. I’ve spent a lot of time between oarlocks. Am I tired of it yet? Someday maybe — but for now no, not at all.
I’ve seen the confident rise of a large rainbow taking a fly more than I previously thought possible. The day that gets old, well, I bet I will be, too. Grasshoppers have come, but not gone. Still upon us are the days of giant foam creations plying likely banks in search of a pair of lips.
All we can say is don’t hang up the rod and reel on account of the calendar. When it comes to fly fishing in western Montana, you sort of can’t go wrong these days. Just kinda throw a dart at the map — it’s all good. There are some five-hundred miles of rivers at our Missoula fingertips. And some of the best are right under our noses.
It is a time to celebrate what it really means to be a fisherperson in a western trout mecca. I’m sure that sighting a big buck on a crisp morning is other worldly, but I’ll wager to wait for a much less epic late September to try my hand at that.
The tug is our drug and we are delirious. We know it will warm us through colder months.
Enjoy this blog? Please leave comments in the Facebook commenting box below and be sure to click the +1 button. Be sure to visit our Make it Missoula fishing page. And Check out Matt and Bryce’s other blogs: Fall Fly Fishing in Western Montana, Ode to Brown Trout, and The Four Stages of Fly Fishing.
If you enjoy western Montana lakes and rivers, you might also enjoy our page on Missoula kayaking and rafting.
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Bryce McLean: (Right) I was born and raised in Montana, and have been fly fishing here for almost 20 years. I first learned to fish on the Missouri River, but when I was 10 my family moved to the Bitterroot Valley. I have been fishing the Bitterroot River ever since. This will be my second season guiding the Missoula area rivers, which I consider to be some of the best trout fisheries on planet earth. Matt Devlin: (Left) Matt is originally from Annapolis, Maryland and learned to fool trout on the technical waters of the Gunpowder River. He has fished in Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Main,e, Michigan, Indiana, North and South Carolina, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, Idaho and Montana. He thinks about flies and fishing a whole lot.