South Fork Of The Flathead River

Sometimes you just have to persevere. Today, was one of those days. I started off with the intent of heading back to the Middle Fork and fish the opposite side of the river I had fished yesterday. As I drove I got a call from a friend that told me that the South Fork was fishing pretty well.  Knowing that yesterday I caught nothing but Whitefish and having heard that the Cutties were super aggressive in the South Fork, I changed my plans. After all, I was driving right by there on the way to the Glacier area.  The South Fork of the Flathead River is a stretch of river that I have floated many times in my raft and I have wade fished several stretches as well. The South Fork is a beautiful float and one of my favorites because you can almost always catch fish. 

So today I decided to hike into a section I had never hiked to but have looked at several times on Google Earth.  True, I have not looked at it for a while, but I thought I had a pretty good idea of where to go. Plus, this was a stretch of river I have stopped at many times while floating and caught some really nice fish there.

The hike in started off a bit ominously.  People in the parking lot had lost their dog.  So as I started up the trail I told them if I found the dogs, I would let them know and yell if I found the dogs. About a half mile in, I found the dogs swimming in the river in a section I thought might be decent fishing.  After I sent the dogs on their way, I continued on to fish the section I intended to fish.  I thought I had a pretty good idea where it should be. Two miles into my hike and I realized I was not going to find the spot I wanted. I had either passed the trail or what looked like a trail was not really a trail. Sometimes where you explore things just do not work out and I figured I had only a limited amount of time so it was time to go to plan B.  So I decided to double back and head downstream and fish a spot I have fished several times before.  As I walked out, a little perturbed that I missed the trail, I came by the stretch I saw the dogs at on the way in and decided just to walk in and look if anything was rising.

I stood there for a second and looked. BINGO! Fish were rising everywhere!!! Nothing big, but lots of fish. I started casting to rises and started catching fish.  Since there were so many fish rising I decided to work on my casting and mending skills.  I stood on the edge of a riffle and made myself make upstream, cross stream and downstream casts. I challenged myself to make mends and casts that I would have normally changed positions to make. After a great couple hours fishing, I decided it was time to pack it up and head home.  Today, I have no complaints. You can’t really complain when you caught a bunch of fish!

What started off as a disappointment turned into a pretty good fishing day.  Like I have said before, a fish on is a fish on!