Blackfoot River, Belmont Creek

9-6-02 - Montana Part II - Belmont Creek Bull Trout?

Rivers Fished: Blackfoot River, Belmont Creek
Fish Caught: 0
Outing Date: 10-13-02
Weather: Rainy
Air Temp: Maybe 60's
Water Temp: N/A
Water Level: N/A
Water Color: Clear
Fish Species: according to the Angler Notice, we were fishing over Bull Trout, Cutthroat Trout, Rainbow Trout and Brookies.
Pattern Fished: same as yesterday
Pattern Color: assorted
Fishing Quality: well at least I saw a fish or two.

Our second day found us again starting off at the Kingfisher Fly Shop in Missoula. We weren't terribly disappointed by our outing yesterday. It had rained a bit and would continue to mist all day. On the plus side we got the opportunity to mud-up Dan's Wrangler as much as possible on the gravel roads leading us along the Blackfoot.

We went further "in" on our next outing, our time being spent around the area of Belmont Creek. We did briefly fish Belmon Creek itself, but quickly kept going to the access point on the Blackfoot, which turned out to be right at the mouth.

Thankfully on this day we sighted fish; they were holding deep at the mouth of Belmont Creek. The were occasional rises to indiscernable insects...I will say now that all of our offerings were ignored. We even tried some "ubber weighted" bead-body nypmhs...NOTHING got these fish to take.

Fortunately Dan is a hiker and a rock climber; he went off in search of some other water and scenery. We ended up south of the mouth on a long stretch of riffles, working the pockets and foam for the remainder of the day. Dan did find a promising looking undercut along a split in the river; we both fished it hard but turned up NOTHING.

Evening obligations forced us to get off the river before dusk, so as yet we are still SKUNKED. Tomorrow would be spent on a long drive to the Gorge in Oregon for the Dave Matthew's Concert (I will tell you now it was the best concert I have ever seen in my life; the AUDIENCE made all the difference...they actually shut-up so you could hear when Dave was talking or playing quietly). Well, we'd fish again in a couple days.