Turning A New Page

Over the past couple years this blog has faded into the abyss of the interwebs. But I’m here to tell you that it’s going to live on and thrive.

First off, I’ll catch you up on what life has been like for me in Montana for the last six months or so. I had a great summer guiding fly fisherman for Latitudes Outfitting Co. here in western Montana. There were lots of great times to be had on the water, and a lot of happy clients!

On my days off, I had time to explore parts of Montana that I hadn’t previously spent much time in. Specifically, northwest Montana and Glacier National Park.

Near the end of summer I flew back to Minnesota to fish muskies with my Dad and high-school buddy Dominic. It was an amazing trip and we experienced the best muskie fishing any of us had seen.

Check out this great video Dominic put together of our trip!

 

It’s safe to say it was an amazing summer. Near the end of August I started my final semester at the University of Montana. Going to college at UM was the best decision of my life so far, and it was a bittersweet feeling to finally be done with school. Even though I had my hands full with classwork during the fall, hunting doesn’t play second fiddle to anything come autumn. It was a great season afield, and the freezer is definitely full.

Right now we’re going through the only month of the year where there’s not a lot to do (in my opinion). But soon enough we’ll be experiencing some of the best dry fly fishing of the year during late-March and April. The Missoula area of Montana boasts one of the best, if not THE best Skwala stonefly hatch in the country during this time. I’m pretty excited for that and for spring to hurry up and get here. Stay tuned!

 

-Trevor Anderson

Check it out!

Check out this blog post I did for my last Marketing class as a college student! Lots of cool pictures from around Montana on this one.
Click the link below and enjoy!

http://www.unbelievab.ly/the-outdoor-life-of-a-university-of-montana-student/

West Coast Swingin’ Photo Essay

This weekend two of my best fishing buddies and I traveled to the Washington Coast to fish for coastal steelhead on some hallowed winter steelhead rivers. Usually when this crew gets together there are a few fish pics to post, but not this time. Low water and not many fresh fish in the system meant tough conditions to swing em’ up on a fly. Can’t wait to get back though, it was an incredible trip! Heres a few photos I took while we were there.

Smith River Montana Photo Journal

On April 1st, my crazy friends and I were luck enough to obtain a permit to float the legendary smith river in central Montana. The Smith is a 60 mile, 5 day wilderness float that has some of the coolest country I have seen before. With finals week approaching here at The University of Montana, I’m a little tight on time so I figure i’ll just post up a bunch of photos from our trip. Enjoy!

 

Help Save a Great Montana Trout Stream

As some of you may know, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks is proposing putting a very large state park on Fish Creek in western Montana. Fish creek is a truly great Montana native westslope cutthroat stream, it’s mostly uncrowded, and it’s only an hour from Missoula. What FWP is proposing would make this fragile ecosystem overcrowded and I will assume eventual habitat destruction. The fish creek valley also is home to wintering Mule and Whitetail Deer, Elk, Moose and other wildlife. The expanded development of trails and electric hookup RV lots would definitely push animals out of the area. It is easy to see that FWP is  looking for extra revenue and trying to take advantage of this great place. Take time to travel to fish creek this summer if you haven’t already done so to experience how wild and beautiful this valley really is. There are already a couple tent campgrounds on the creek, and in my opinion, the electric RV hookup lots would ruin how wild this place is. Comment on the link below and tell Montana FWP to not develop the Fish Creek drainage in any way, and keep this wild place unscathed by development. Thanks!

http://stateparks.mt.gov/news/publicNotices/board/pn_0004.html

Pure Cutthroats like this are common on Fish Creek.

Fish Creek is also critical habitat for spawning Cuttbows coming up from the Clark Fork.

Another Summer has come and gone…

This summer was an absolute whirlwind, I was busy as a bee guiding, fishing, and traveling, and was only able to update the blog a couple times in the last few months. But it was a great summer, I enjoyed time on the water with a lot of great people, and was fortunate enough to experience some great fishing. Once again I don’t have a lot of time for a big write up, so I figured I’d post a handful of pictures I can round up from the summer to give you a feel of what it was like. Thanks for reading.

Mr. Robinson with a fine Bitterroot rainbow.

Cody with a sunset fish, during some of the best fishing of the year.

Scouting for ducks.

Kyle with one of his fist fish in Montana.

At times it was double the fun.

Herb, one of my favorite clients, with a great West Fork Cuttbow.

Stillwater River, MT

Gretchen with a bright Cutthroat.

Creek Rainbow. Photo: Dennis Anderson

A little Heli fishing

My Dad and I.

Creek Cutthroat.

Our Annual Elk River trip in Fernie, B.C.

Garret with a great Cutthroat from the Elk. Photo Credit: Alec Underwood.

Undie with a great fish from the Elk. Photo: Garret Visser

Garret’s girlfriend, Abby, with a great Bull Trout from the Elk. Photo: Alec Underwood

Chris with a nice Elk River Bull. Photo Credit: Cody Melchior

Elk river double. Photo: Alec Underwood.

Photo Credit: Garret Visser

Photo Credit: Dennis Anderson

A Summer not to be forgotten.

Break in the Action

Today is the first day in a while where I’ve had a chance to breathe and relax a little, so I’ll put a few photos from the latest adventures up. Lately I’ve been all over western Montana chasing bent rods and good times, and for the most part we’ve enjoyed awesome fishing so far this summer. Last week we had great mayfly weather…clouds, rain and a just a little sun. Green drakes were awesome and the fish were on in the clouds.

Chunky mayfly eater.

Fishing buddy Tyler with a nice rainbow on a caddis.

I also ran up to the Blackfoot with a couple clients, although the dry fly fishing up there in the bright sun was not too spectacular, Brandon was able to hook and skillfully land this big Bull Trout…on 4x tippet. Pretty good for his third day ever fly fishing.

Rainstorm in the Bitterroots.

I did have a day off this week that I took advantage of to do a little fun fishing. We fished The lower Clark Fork a ways from town had had a fun day picking off some rising fish on pmd’s. Those fish down there fight so hard it’s ridiculous.

Cody with a very nice pmd sipper.

That’s all I got for now, stay tuned for more after fourth of July week.

Lately I haven’t had much time or energy to post up here, so I figured I’ll throw a few words and photos up finally. A couple weeks back I wrapped up my trip back home to Minnesota and Wisconsin. Aside from the bass and other warmwater species fishing I did while back, I also made a run with my Dad and good family friend Dave to the north shore of Minnesota, for great lakes steelhead. The trip was a success and we got into a few nice fish. A few of the fish we hooked where brought to hand, and some just flat out kicked our ass. They are a very strong fish.

My favorite north shore river.

A Great Lakes Steelhead

On the way home we stopped at one of my favorite northern Wisconsin trout rivers. The fishing was overall slow, but we caught a couple respectable fish on dries. I took this picture to show how different the coloration of these browns are than Montana fish.

Dark

After the trip up north it was time to head back to Montana. I was greeted by great dry fly action with salmonflies and golden stones.

Ben with a nice brown on a golden stone.

I also started guiding this week, and had a couple good days with a new client and friend, Herb.

Herb with a Salmonfly rainbow.

After that, my good friend Cody was in town, and we made a run to some of my favorite water and were greeted by more good stonefly fishing on top.

Beautiful brown.

Cody with a good one.

Beautiful Dry Fly Cutthroat.

Summer In Montana…Paradise.

Thanks for reading, I will try and get some more stuff up here soon.

Memorial Day Weekend

Remember today those who have given their lives for our freedom. Around 1.3 million Americans have sacrificed their lives during the history of our country. Most of them had their whole lives in front of them, but unselfishly gave it up so we could enjoy things such as hunting and fishing in this great land.

This last weekend I traveled to central Minnesota with my old high school fishing buddy Dom, and his brother, Nick. We were invited up to their Uncle’s duck cabin to fish the surrounding lakes. It’s a Northwoods classic-made of big pine logs with an iron wood stove and Les Couba duck paintings hanging on the walls.

We got to fishing one of the nearby lakes. Although it was cold and rainy, the bass seemed to be really active. We caught fish on a number of presentations from texas rigs to spinnerbaits, but the best seemed to be a wacky style plastic worm fished on a spinning rod.

Note the hooded rain jacket…It felt like March. Not Summer-like at all.

Dom with a good one pitchin’ in the reeds.

Ran into a walleye as well.

As the grey sky turned into darkness we headed back to the cabin. The next day turned out to be just as grey and windy out, but fortunately no rain. We caught some nice bass and northerns in the morning, and then focused on pitching slip bobbers to the shallows in hopes of bringing home enough crappies for dinner.

A grey day on the water.

Minnesota…the land of lots of pike.

Fish Fry

It was a great day filled with multiple species…one of things that makes the lakes of the north country so great. The last morning we planned to fish for just a quick couple of hours and then hit the road, the numbers of bass weren’t as good as the previous days that morning, but we caught a handful and Nick pulled a big one.

Weighed in at 5.5 lbs. Who says there aren’t big bass in the north?

We headed back to town soon after. It was an awesome weekend of fishing with great friends, it sure feels good to be back on the waters of the midwest. I’ll now be headed to the North Shore of Minnesota in search of Steelhead this week. The rivers are receding from blowing out last week due to all the rain we’ve been getting but they should be close to prime now. Thanks for reading.

Spring ’13 Wrap-Up

Well, that about does it for our pre-runoff 2013 spring fishing season. It was a great season, and by many accounts, some of the best spring fishing in recent memory. The skwala hatch started early (about march 9th) and ended late (still on the clark fork right now). John Faust, famous Bitterroot Valley guide and fly tyer said this was the longest Skwala hatch he’s seen in 30+ years of guiding the river. We also had great mayfly hatches in late March and April. It was one of those springs where from mid March to early May, you could be successful fishing dries and not having to use an indicator rig, pretty much any day you were on the Bitterroot. This weekend was no different. On friday I waded the Blackfoot, and there was a great amount of Grey Drakes, March Browns, and Caddis out. In usual Blackfoot fashion, the little fish showed up in droves to eat on top, and a brindle chute was all that was needed to have a good time with a bunch of em.

On Saturday I got to fish out of a Jet Boat again with my friend Scotty on the lower Clark Fork. We used the jet to run and gun from spot to spot. The hatches were very localized and only in certain spots. We would find the bugs and the risers, catch some until they got educated, then move on to another pod. It’s a very efficient way to fish bigger water. Unfortunately I was feeling a little lazy with the camera, and didn’t take any pictures, sorry bout that. Sometimes it’s more fun to just fish and forget about blogging…

On Sunday I hiked to the top of Mount Jumbo here in Missoula, to start getting prepared for elk season. It was a good hike up and a great view from the top. This time I brought the camera…

Runoff has unofficially started and most of the water will be blown out by late this week. It was a great spring, but I’m just as excited for summer. Now it’s time to finish strong in school so I can enjoy a great Montana summer fishing season. Can’t wait.