In early July my friend Wayne Trzyna came up and we did some exploratory fishing. We floated one of the tributaries of the Missouri at low water. It was pretty scratchy; I'm glad we didn't have boats any bigger than we did. As it was, he was an inch or so higher in the water than I, and occasionally it showed... The Missouri has a number of tributaries which are floatable, but the river was below what most people consider good floating.
We put on fairly late, having met at about 5:00 pm and then doing a shuttle. Because this river is surrounded by private land, the only places to camp are below the normal high water mark. At high water, there basically are no places to camp. At low water, there are very few. We found a gravel bar, and spent a wonderful evening just hashing out life while Wayne cooked us a gourmet meal with fine wine, buffalo steaks sauteed in a mushroom sauce, and I can't remember what else. It was yummy. The big round container in the foreground is a bear resistant food storage container. It's not waterproof, but is pretty water tight if stood upright. So it's good in camp in the rain, and makes a good seat, but it has to be packed inside a waterproof bag.
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| Wayne cooking | First camp |
The fishing wasn't great, but we had a fun time anyway. The bigger fish had pretty much migrated out to the Missouri, so we didn't catch any monsters. What fish there were were pretty much staying in the deep holes. But we weren't bored either; the scenery is wonderful, and because of the low water, we had the river mostly to ourselves.
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| Typical MRTrib low-water rainbow | Typical low-water MRTrib trout water |
At one point we came around a bend and a sheepherder was moving a flock of over a thousand ewes across the river to new pasture. The crossing was just above a deep hole, and he was keeping pretty busy fishing out lambs that lost their footing and were floating off. I beached my boat and helped keep the flock moving to prevent them from becoming two isolated bands, one on each side of the river. He had a well-trained horse which he just left ground-tied, a border collie who pretty much knew his job, and a Komondorok guard dog who was just big and friendly. The herder coaxed the first few ewes across by wading and holding a feeder full of grain in front of them. I tried to talk to him a little in Spanish, but later learned that he was probably Brazilian, and would speak Portuguese. He seemed appreciative of my help, and I felt good to have been able to help. I would have liked to sit with him and talk around the fire one evening.
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| Sheep crossing | Guard dog | Scooping up lambs |
We did catch a few medium-sized fish; here's a photo of Wayne releasing a rainbow and a nice brown.
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| Wayne releasing rainbow | Nice brown |
Here are pictures of Wayne working his way through an S curve rapid in his inflatable kayak.
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| Wayne at top of rapid | Wayne in rapid |
Our second camp was on a large gravel bar also. It was in a narrow part of the canyon, and I wouldn't want to be there right after a hard rain. There's not much room for the river to go anywhere but up.
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| Camp 2 |
The best part of the trip is the middle, where the river winds through low cliffs.
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| Life is rough... | Wayne working a hole |
We came across some families of Mergansers, some with only a few ducklings, and others with many.
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There was also a large eagle's nest, complete with eagle and eaglet.
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| Eagle's nest |
After three days we hit the Missouri and headed home. Then we had a lousy fishing trip on the Big Blackfoot, and had fun catching midgets on the North Fork of the Blackfoot .
This page last updated on 2013-10-23.
