The Beaverhead River near
Twin Bridges, Montana
Submitted by Michele White (Murray), Tumbling Trout Outfitters
Two of my dear ol' aunties mentioned to
my mother that my fishing stories have more to do with drinking than
with fishing. In consequence of that criticism, I submit this
semi-technical account of fishing on the Beaverhead, above it's
confluence with the Big hole on the Jefferson River, near Twin Bridges,
Montana.
The following is a recount of a story told to me by our friend, Tony,
who lives in Ramsay, Montana and who introduced Doug and I to the
Beaverhead part of the Jefferson River. Since everyone's got to have
their own drift boat, Tony bought Doug's older, hand-hewn wooden dory,
the "Rub-a-Dub-Tub". At first glance, The Tub looks like a nicely
crafted McKenzie/Rouge-style dory, though it's not as streamlined as
modern river dories. Its sides are almost 4 feet high - making for
significant drag in even a light breeze, which is one of the reasons
Doug bought a Clackacraft. He was tired of being blown up river and
having to row like a slave at sea in order to make the take-outs before
midnight. Mostly, the Rub-a-Dub-Tub is a hybrid of someone's Dad's
ideas, probably birthed in a home garage with a bunch of birdfeeders and
doghouses.
Though the Beaverhead is usually the color of weak coffee above its
confluence with the Big Hole, its murky holes contain abundant, large
browns with hooked noses and stickery teeth. Tony likes to float-fish
from above the confluence to about 5 miles down through their united
lineage using tan and gray muddlers, black and green wooly buggers with
gold chrome, and glittery gold, treble-hook Rapalas with crimped barbs
for catch and release purposes. Of course, if bugs are coming off the
water, you can always use an Elk-hair Caddis pattern, not too small. You
want something you can see against the green water. On iffy days, orange
and yellow attractor patterns and Royal Wulffs are good. Never get on
the Jefferson without a grasshopper, either, if the weather is going to
be hot.
Tony
puts The Tub in at Twin Bridges' community park and takes out on BLM
property above Silver Star. This stretch of the Jefferson is not very
technical, except for a rare submerged Cottonwood tree after a heavy
rainstorm. The first stretch of this run is not too scenic, unless
you're into cement blocks and other aggregate concretions. The
Beaverhead is heavily used for agricultural purposes and is confined
like an irrigation canal between artificial banks of cement blocks with
an occasional iron Re-bar sticking out. Above the confluence with the
Big Hole, most of the land is privately owned, though in Montana, that
is not a fishing issue. Rather, you look out on the backyards of houses
and see people's laundry and hear kids barking and dogs giggling in the
background. The river character changes below the confluence to a
braided-meander with shallow sandbars and abundant islands, which make
for diverse wade fishing and nymphing of the riffles. This rest of this
expanse runs through natural over-bank flood plains, heavily treed with
cottonwoods and bushes, being chock full of wildlife. You'll always see
deer and maybe something more unusual, like a skunk or Big Foot, even.
However, the main channel is consistently deep through this flood plain
and allows for dory expedition, even when local irrigation makes the
river run low in the late summer months.
The lack of professional shuttle services
in this vicinity means that Tony has to coordinate with his buddies to
get the boat around. Tony will often extend a spontaneous invitation to
a bunch of guys at one time, hoping someone will turn up. One time, a
group of 7 big guys with names like, "Tank" and "Bubby", showed up with
all their gear, lunch and 15 cases of cheap beer.
Tony
has a magic way of assessing disaster. He's confident and competent - a
good combination when you need to get a tricky job done. He'll roll a
great big fat cigar around on his jaw while he's thinking, then he'll
usually provide a solution. At that time, Tony eyeballed the crew and
their mass of stowage, rocked back and forth from one leg to the other,
as he's known to do while he's thinking, and rolled the cigar around
from one corner of his mouth to the other. In a few minutes, he had a
plan: two guys standing, two guys sitting up front, one helmsman in the
middle, two guys sitting, one guy standing in the back. They'd have to
stack the cases of beer as benches. (Sooner than later, they wouldn't
have to worry about that commodity any more.) Everyone put this vision
into action -- not wanting to be left behind, confined like an exile to
fish from the banks of the community park, only to return home without
having gotten on the river at all. When they disembarked, the tall sides
of The Tub were submerged to within 3 inches of the gunnels. She groaned
a little, too, bobbing down-stream.
Casting aboard The Tub had to be accomplished in regimens, 3 at a time.
Not everyone in Tony's crew used the popular patterns. Most of them used
Rapalas and found satisfaction in trolling behind the brave wooden boat
or just flicking the lure along side, or even under the keel for those
Navy Seal type trout. A few of them had worms, though, of the real and
alive variety, as opposed to the rubber ones, and maybe even some
Powerbait, if worse came to worse. All in all, fish were going to be
had. Everyone was glad to be included, looking forward to a fine day on
the river, far from thoughts of oil to be changed, gutters to be
repaired, manure to be spread, and the likes of a bazillion other
weekend duties waiting for their attention at home.
Though
Tony is a bonafide, country-raised Montana native, he's traveled and
fished with a global variety of fancy-pants, politically correct
fishermen, and has an influence on the fishing practices aboard his
vessel. This was fortunate for the crew of The Tub, as most of the barbs
were crimped. Also, Tony had a preference for practicing catch & release
procedures. However, sometimes the method of release included stepping
on the fish's head and yanking the hook (and lips) off the fish's face.
Another method was to hug the flapping critter to your chest with an arm
and rip the gear out of its mouth with your other hand. Freeing the
trout was more like getting rid of a sticky old sock. You grip the freed
fish like a machete and fling it overhead baseball fashion as far across
the water as possible, as though that distance were part of the
performance. In this way, the men were practicing Montana-style catch &
release. It was better than biting their little heads off, squishing the
guts out the gaping hole and stuffing them in a pocket. The effort was
in a primary state, in need of future nurturing. Mostly, though, large,
terrible trout were kept in the bilge near the feet of the hunter, to be
made into dinner when they got home.
The worried helmsman could only use the oars to direct the submerged
belly of the engorged dory down the main channel. The Tub lumbered
slowly, slightly dipping from side to side. The men were careful to hold
their positions and use their weight to keep the gunnels above water.
The first 2 miles of the Beaverhead below Twin Bridges, being confined
by steep banks of cement, runs deep and sure requiring little
negotiation from the oarsman. Occasionally, though, the sound of
flat-hull scraping over some hidden threat resulted in momentary silence
and big eyes from the crew. But, the reliant Tub just kept drifting on.
Unfortunately
for the underwater fauna, the arrival of this nearly submerged vessel
hailed what seemed to a trout to be a very interesting clutter of
brightly colored, glittery, clicking and flicking devices, probably like
a school of minnows or some other underwater hatch accompanying an
errant manatee. So, it was that Tony's crew managed to bring a keel-load
aboard of assorted size Browns with a rare Rainbow and even one
tenacious crawdad, clinging and cursing in crustacean-style to a poor,
shredded worm's neck, the head having been severed off by some quick,
nimble old fish as a favorite trout joke. Some of the fish were so large
they could impress professional tuna hunters (if a tuna hunter were to
be taking holiday on the Jefferson River). These especially large
animals accumulated and their weight added to The Tub's cargo.
About mid-morning, the crew was coming up
on the Beaverhead's confluence with the Big Hole. Tank had been
operating the anchor for drag effect to slow The Tub down. He also had
his line hanging over the stern dragging a gold and silver Rapala in a
nice foam-line. The Tub entered an eddy and began to spin at her own
free will, uncontainable by, Bubby, the helmsman. Tank's line became
tangled up in the anchor line and he launched into a hoopla over the
mess, blaming the guy at the oars. So, another guy, Chuck, addressed the
problem by chomping Tank's line off with his teeth and, at the same
time, nursing his own line over the stern. That action enraged Tank and
words flew. During this tirade, Chuck got a strike and began reeling his
line in, which also became entangled with the anchor line. The result of
that bad luck was a stern discussion between Chuck and Tank, the latter
of which was holding an empty rod in his hand.
Of course, when Tank pulled up the anchor to retrieve his lure, he also
gave Chuck's line a liberating chomp. This made Chuck even less amiable.
The intensity of the spat went up a notch and the whole rest of the crew
now ate up this amusement. When Tank finished pulling the anchor clear
of the water, everyone saw that an enormous Brown trout flopped around,
dangling from the anchor line with a lure stuck in its lip and two
different colored leaders wrapped around its poor body. Everyone was
just amazed at this sight. Chuck immediately claimed the fish to be his
own, caught on his line that Tank bit off. Tank disagreed. This fish was
hooked on his line that Chuck bit off - and he qualified even further,
because he was the one operating the anchor line and tangled leaders,
which ensnared the trout.
The ensuing argument took on serious magnitude until Tony intervened by
offering to examine the lines and lure as an uninterested third party.
Tony inspected the fish to make sure it wasn't foul hooked, then the
lure and leaders. Tony announced his findings and all seemed clear whose
fish it belonged to. But, words of frustration and bickering continued
to be passed between Tank and Chuck not only the rest of the day, but
for the rest f their lives. The element of suspicion is that Tank could
describe the trout-catching leader, but not his lure, and Chuck could
not only describe the lure, but he also presented a duplicate from his
pocket. Therein lies the discrepancy of Tony's call to this day.
In the middle of this fine expedition, in the middle of this fine day,
in the middle of a particularly deep and rushing part of the Jefferson
River, an astute one of the crew noticed a knothole the size of a slice
of bologna about 6 inches up from the floor in the side of the wooden
dory. The knothole was bulging at its seam and leaking beads of water.
If that plug were to give, there would be a gush of water that could cut
a man in half. The hull would most likely split in two from the release
of pressure between the river on its outside and the weight of the 8 big
men on the inside. The knothole was fret with sweat. They all looked at
the disk as if some radioactive grenade had fallen to the floor from
outer space.
As I said before, Tony has a magic way of assessing disaster. With
realistic authority, Tony directed the helmsman to steer for the nearest
bank, and he somehow managed to swing the bow over. The dory slid to a
comfortable rest about 5 feet out from the shore, but in shallow water.
Like Viking arrivals, the men dispersed themselves and their gear to
land and immediately sought bushes. Tony and one of his mechanically
deft crewmembers reviewed the situation while the others lightened the
horde of solids (Vienna sausages, bananas, string cheese, other
man-food...) and liquids (beer) by consuming them for the sake of
safety. A reconsolidating of the necessary items (leftover beer and
empty, crushed potato chip bags) made for the dory to be much roomier
than before. Now, only 3 at a time were permitted in the boat. The rest
had to wade-fish from the bank, moving downstream to keep up with the
dory. Every once in a while, Tony would administrate an exchange between
drifters and waders. At the end-point of an island, gear and men were
transported together to the next landing, which allowed all of them to
refresh their beer holding gullets.
All in all, a great time was had and many fish were caught that day, (and
some trout were released with or without parts of their face). The Tub
was deemed by everyone to be a fine fishing vessel, a boat to be
reckoned with by professional standards. Tony was a lucky man to have
such a dependable dory. The only glitch in the day's events might have
been Tank and Chuck's entanglement, though that situation also provided
much entertainment to the rest of the group. Perhaps the worse they
experienced occurred as a result of the shuttle, in that they couldn't
all fit in the crew-cab pickup. At that point, some of them opted to
wait for a ride rather than participate in another of Tony's
problem-solving schemes.
All text, photos and graphics Copyright © 2001 by Michele White (Murray), Tumbling Trout Outfitters. No reproduction, linking, or copying without permission