My biggest trout of the trip

Sweet Grass Creek
August 2023

Species: Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout

A Hundred Trout in Montana

​This was not primarily a fishing trip, but a father-daughter trip with my younger daughter. However, I can't go to Montana without doing some fishing, and the area we stayed in had many opportunities close by. We spent most of our time at the Sweet Grass Ranch (www.sweetgrassranch.com), which is in a beautiful area at the base of the Crazy Mountains.

Sweet Grass Ranch

The view from the yurt we stayed in

Our yurt

The Crazy Mountains are part of the Rockies, and get their name from the original Crow name, referencing a woman who went crazy and lived in them after her family was killed. Despite the sad origin of their name, they are one of the most beautiful places I have been to in the continental United States. 

​Weather was very kind to us during the week, with some rain the first day and sunshine the rest of the time. The fishing was actually best on the first day, but I did not mind staying dry the rest of the week.
​
I did not fish every day, all day like I usually do, as I was primarily there to spend time with my daughter. However, my daughter mostly wanted to ride horses, which I dislike, and the fishing was so easily accessible it was easy to fish for an hour or two at a time and still be back for meals.

My initial fishing efforts were focused near my yurt. The Sweet Grass Creek ran right behind it, and contained a good number of Brook Trout. Some beaver ponds connected to the creek contained even more fish, and they were well concentrated in the deeper spots. I did some spin fishing the first day, but almost completely abandoned that for the rest of the week in favor of fly fishing. The relatively small, heavily wooded creek did not lend itself to spin fishing, and I really enjoy fly fishing for trout since it feels like the technique was invented for them. They also put up a much better fight on fly gear. The downside was that I had to spend some time pulling flies out of trees and bushes, but that got better throughout the week as I adapted.

The Brook Trout were small; I think the largest I caught was around 13".  However, they were beautifully colored and hungrily devoured nearly any fly I threw at them, so I had a blast catching them. Here are a few:

The Brook Trout were so hungry that I even managed a double, with one on the dry fly and one on the dropper nymph:

Fishing on the ranch's private section of the creek was nice, because you only had to share the water with the ranch's few other guests who were fishing. There was enough area to spread out and have spots to yourself. Here is a pic of me fishing one of the pools by myself. The little dot on the right is me.

Another shot I took while hiking up the creek:

The fish were mostly concentrated in the deeper pools, so you had to do a lot of hiking in between spots. Fortunately, the creek was low and not that fast so you could wade it and occasionally cross it without too much trouble. As you got farther down, there started to be more and more Brown Trout. I got permission to fish the section of the creek on the adjacent ranch, and it was almost all Brown Trout in the 12-17" range. They did not wake up until the afternoon, but were active once the water warmed up. One day they only wanted dry flies and the next day they only wanted nymphs, which I why I like fishing both at once on a dropper set up.

Since I was fishing by myself, I couldn't get any photos with me in them, but I did get some shots of the fish.

Wildlife was abundant. I saw some Elk, Deer, several Bald Eagles, a large Golden Eagle, a couple of Otters, and several snakes during the week. Fortunately, none of the snakes were venomous. Unfortunately, I did not have my real camera (just my phone) so I was only able to get a pic of one of the snakes. It would have been way too much trouble to lug my DSLR around the creek all day, so I just had to take mental pictures of most of the wildlife. Here is one of the snakes I did manage to get a pic of since it was so close.

On two occasions, I got an outside guide and fished nearby lakes. The first was about an hour and a half away, and had mostly Brown Trout. Lake fish can be hard to fool, because unlike river fish, they have lots of time to inspect your fly and decide whether or not it looks fake. There is no urgency since the food is not getting whisked away by the current. They also have a lot easier time seeing you, especially when the wind is down. During calm and sunny conditions, it was very tough to get bites.  Fortunately, throughout the day there were periods of breeze and cloud cover, which would hide the fly (and the boat) somewhat, which resulted in some takes on the grasshopper flies. I managed to get 10 takes and landed 4. Two jumped off, one broke off, and the other three just didn't get hooked. Of the ones I landed, the biggest was 19", while the smallest was 17". Sadly I did not get a great photo holding the biggest one, but I got a decent shot of it in the net (4th pic below) and you can get a sense of the size.

The other outside lake I fished was about an hour away, and had both Rainbows and Browns. The plan was to fish with nymphs and leeches in the morning, and then fish with dry flies as the water warmed and the grasshoppers (hopefully) started flying. My guide had fished that lake a lot and was very dialed in to the right spots. I started getting bites right away and landed the first four straight.  Those fish measured 21", 20", 16", and 14". The bigger fish put up a really strong fight - jumping, peeling drag and trying to get into the weeds. It was a little dicey playing them with the light leader, but I was able to gently but firmly put enough pressure to steer the fish away from weeds and logs without breaking off. The key is applying even pressure and letting them run; jerking or trying to stop them snaps the line quickly. I actually only broke off one fish all day, and that was on an overly enthusiastic hookset. All the bass fishing I have done gets the better of me sometimes.

The fifth fish that bit was the one I had come for. I could tell it was a tank right away, as it bit hard and got into the weeds. Fortunately it swam out, and then went on a blistering run and then jumped. When I saw what a big and beautiful fish it was, I started praying hard that I would land it and focused on putting pressure but not breaking it off. My guide rowed the boat to the deepest spot he could, and after a few more runs we managed to get it into the net. I was ecstatic; it was a very fat 23" and weighed around 8lbs. An absolutely stunning fish, especially on fly.

After a quick release, we went back to fishing, caught one or two more, and then took a break for lunch. My day was made, so I was stoked. In the afternoon, the grasshopper activity had picked up and there was a good amount of wind, so grasshoppers were getting blown into the lake and the fish were eating them. We decided to try hopper flies, and got several takes. Unfortunately my landing percentage was a bit lower, but I did get a couple of really nice fish of 22" and 21" on them. You can see the flies in the pics.

The grasshopper bite died down, so I went back to nymphs and picked up a few more. All in all, I landed 11 Rainbows out of 20 bites for a very good day. 

Some of those suckers were slippery

The guide service I used was Montana Angler (www.montanaangler.com) and I was very pleased with them.

On the last day, I decided to just take it easy and head to the beaver ponds at the ranch in the afternoon to try to catch the last 13 fish I needed to get to 100 for the week. I got six from the first pond and seven from the next in an hour and a half (including the walk there) and went back to relax. All fish enthusiastically ate grasshopper flies as shown in the photos. No giants, but all were stunning. They are really little works of art.

Totals for the week were 11 Rainbow Trout to 23", 13 Brown Trout to 19", and 76 Brook Trout to 13". Not too shabby considering I only averaged about 4 hours of fishing each day across the week.