Montana is a state of mind. For those fortunate to shed the routines and ruts of urban stress and rediscover the habits of trout, you are reborn. Watching the waters, talking to bug and fish gurus, then humiliating yourself trying to bring a trout to a fly reminds us we are out of the zone. It usually takes us ardent fisher five to ten days to ,"get it." Within a week, motor neurons fire off dormant signals to refine the of cast and most important, create the free-drift. All the while, Montana rivers and tea colored streams change daily and each insect genus hatch's until there are no more and the trout key in on another hatch . You had better adapt.
Trout thrive and ready for the winter in those unseen feeding zone and it's up to you to discover the algorithms to unlock the door. Your eyes tell the hand to grip the cork, to shoot the sharkskin line and lay that bug right where you think a trout hides. You hope it brings up a bug eater. And in Montana, you can be confident that a trout lies waiting there.
There are many ways to zen Montana; flushing a wily pheasant, or taking a pair of Huns with your English hammer gun over a pointing Wirehair or adjusting windage and elevation before dropping an antelope at 500 yards. Even watching a World Class Dog Trainer send his client's Field Trail retriever on a 400 yards blind without handling the mark is sufficient to rest the soul. But, the finest and purest zone is reserved for the dry fly fisher.
Over forty years I've been blessed to rebirth in Montana. The waters still hold many surprises even as new anglers pound the banks with huge bugs attempting to bring up trout. This year was special, as I watched my experienced fly-caster wife shed her strict routine and join me dry fly fishing for aggressive rainbow and stealthy browns. By week five, my eldest son a University Student arrived with a friend and quickly regained his beautiful casting and enthusiasm for trout fishing. He was coached by the best. Lefty Kreh gave him many lessons during when we home schooled him in West Yellowstone. Dave Whitlock let him in on secret to hopper fishing the Madison and Bob Jacklin told him about fall fishing. Then my youngest son arrived after an immersion summer at Middlebury Vermont studying Chinese. He was jaded, after catching 6 pounds rainbows on every cast while traveling with me in Canada by age 7.
Period one was the post Salmon fly to the Mayfly time. When there is so much insecta emerging feed in the rivers the trout will only move an inch or two to seek a drifting fly. They are feeding aggressively so that a well cast free-drifting fly with the proper size and tippet combination will induce a big trout to slam your bug, take you into backing as you helplessly watch it head down stream to eventually ping you unless you can run the banks
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