Category
Trips & Water Profiles
The drive is part of the fishing. These are public-water profiles, access checks, unfamiliar-water reads and backup plans for when the place on the map does not behave the way the plan in the truck did. Use Field Sense Navigator for a current public-water check.
Everything filed under this heading, newest first.
Georgetown Lake Is Fifteen Feet Deep on Average and That Explains Everything
Twenty-eight hundred acres at six thousand feet, and only fifteen feet deep on average. Being shallow and fertile is why Georgetown grows fish fast, and also why it freezes early.
You Drove Three Hours and the River Is the Color of a Milkshake
The gauge said one thing yesterday. Standing on the bank it says another. What you do in the next twenty minutes decides whether this is a bad day or a wasted one.
Taking Somebody Who Doesn’t Fish Is a Different Trip, Not a Worse One
They said yes because you were excited, and a few hours later they’re cold and pretending to have a nice time. Most of that is fixable, and hardly any of it is about the fishing.
The Water Is Public. The Ground Under It Might Not Be.
Wading a river through private land is a legal right in Montana and a trespass in Wyoming. The federal rules don’t change at the border, but state law does, and that’s the whole difference.
The Big Hole Is the Last River in the Lower 48 With Grayling in It
The Big Hole holds the last native river grayling in the lower 48. It also has a brown trout decline nobody’s explained yet, and a drought plan that can decide your season for you.
I’d Rather Know One Lake Twelve Ways Than Twelve Lakes Once
Fishing the same water over and over gives you something a new lake can’t: an older version to compare against. Familiarity doesn’t make you an oracle, but it makes change easier to spot.
Three Doors Into Thirteen Miles: The Bighorn Below Yellowtail
The upper Bighorn below Yellowtail is famous trout water with only three public ways in. Plan the day around those doors and the rules before you start worrying about flies.
Bank Fishing Gets Better When You Stop Trying to Reach the Middle
Why is the first cast off the bank always the longest one? Most of the water worth fishing from shore is a lot closer than the middle.
Fishing Licenses and Regulations: The Water-Specific Check Before You Cast
Your license only settles whether you can fish in that state. Whether this river is open today, or those minnows in your bucket are legal here, is a whole separate check.
There Will Be Days
Lightning pushed us off the Clark Fork and into a Griz bar in Bobcat gear, and the float we got afterward didn’t need to be a serious fishing day to count.