Big water on the Big Hole: Learning the hard way to fish one of MT’s finest rivers
By BEN PIERCE Chronicle Outdoors
WISE RIVER — Upstream of here on the Big Hole River the fields are flooded with rainwater and snowmelt. Rivulets of tea-colored water course through the surging spring grasses and funnel back to the main stem beneath cloudy skies.
I’ve been searching all weekend for a spot to fish, but the flows are big and the water doesn’t lend itself to wading this time of year. I’ve hit East Bank and Fishtrap and Squaw Creek. I’ve fished nymphs and streamers and dries. I’ve picked up a couple whitefish, but as for the trout, I’m at a loss.
I’ve seen plenty of happy floaters though, and as I watch them drift by at high speed in their Clackas and Hydes and Ros, I long for a boat of my own. Some of the islands appear to provide good holding water if only I could reach them. Today, I’m stuck dredging nymphs through the few deep holes within casting distance of shore.
In desperation, I drop into Troutfitters fly shop a short shot down Highway 43 from Wise River. There, I meet proprietor Frank Stanchfield. He’s a jovial guy with a big voice and he listens with a grin to my predicament.
“Wait till the water drops,” he says with a laugh. “This time of year the fish are spread out along their feed lanes and it is tougher for the wade fisherman than it is the boat fisherman.
“The boat fisherman is exposing his bait to more fish because he is getting a whack at every little piece of the river. For the wade fisherman, the fish aren’t as concentrated in this higher water.”
For sure, it’s been a big water year on the Big Hole, as it has much of the rest of Montana. Flows on the Big Hole near Wise River peaked above 9,000 cubic feet per second on June 11 and have been dropping steadily since. Last weekend the water was hovering around 5,000cfs with two to three feet of clarity.
Generally those are good conditions for fishing the upper Big Hole, Stanchfield tells me. Most anglers fish above Wise River this time of year. The Wise adds a lot of volume to the Big Hole during runoff and the upper river fishes best in the early season. There are good browns and rainbows, as well as some really nice brook trout that lurk in the waters near Jackson, he says.
Stanchfield points to the row of trout photos ringing the upper walls of his shop — each one a brown trout, each 25 inches or greater in length. The images evoke both humility and inspiration. It’s good to see the big ones are here; I just wish I could catch them.
The upper Big Hole also holds a viable population of fluvial grayling, one of the last such populations in the West. According to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks grayling biologist James Magee, the upper Big Hole suits the grayling because of its high elevation and connectivity.
“Wisdom is at 6,100 feet and, relatively speaking, is a pretty cold climate,” Magee said. “Plus, the Big Hole doesn’t have a dam and grayling are notorious movers. They will move between spawning habitat and feeding habitat, and they’ll seek refuge in the tributaries from the summer heat. We have grayling that move 60 to 70 miles a summer on the Big Hole.”
In low water years, of which the Big Hole has seen several through a decade of drought, some stretches of the river are closed to protect the grayling and the fishery as a whole.
Magee said high flows like this year’s benefit the fishery by keeping water temperatures low through the heat of summer and redistributing sediment in the river channel, which improves habitat for the fish.
The river’s freestone characteristics are of vital importance to the success of the Big Hole’s grayling, but it was wasn’t always this way.
When I ask Stanchfield about the Powerhouse access site I fished with some friends back in April, he tells me a story about the failure of an old dam on the Wise River.
“The Powerhouse access was once a hydroelectric dam,” Stanchfield says. “There was another dam, a storage dam up the Wise River called the Pettengill Dam, and that one washed out in 1927. It came down and killed three people, flooded the town of Wise River and did damage all the way to Twin Bridges. It took out the dam down at Divide and it was never replaced.”
Today, the Powerhouse fishing access site provides some decent fishing opportunities, Stanchfield said, but it’s a tough place to navigate in a boat and even tougher on foot. The hillside at the access point is a maze of loose boulders and heavy brush — even some old remnant artifacts from the dam. But the pools are there, and presumably the trout are, too.
Before I leave the Big Hole, I pull down the steep riverside road and cross the Old Divide Bridge to the Powerhouse. The water’s even higher and more intimidating here than it was on the upper river.
On the rocks just upstream a family is spin fishing. The mom gives out a hoot as she reels a whitefish into the rocks.
I cast out in the turbid, tannin-stained water hoping for a trout. But my indicator just swirls in the current until the rains come again.
And I remember then what Stanchfield said.
“The Big Hole is a unique river. It is not dam controlled, it is not temperature controlled and you have got to go out and ask the fish how he wants to eat. I have never been able to tell him, he will tell me. It is a great river, but you have to pay your dues.”
Related posts:
- Bozeman’s Jon Yousko wins Jackson Hole fishing tournament with Team Worldcast
- Madison River Foundation receives grant from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks
- Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks ups ante on fight against aquatic invasive species
- High water safety: Boaters reminded to stay smart during this year’s runoff
- Time to buy your 2011 fishing license, new regs for Yellowstone, Missouri rivers set
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