Hooked on this series yet? We’re in the Mecca of fly fishing now: Montana! Just the name gets you fired up, right? Let me tell you a personal story: this is where I went totally nuts for fly fishing. I ended up there kind of by accident. I’d offered to help a friend I’d met in San Francisco move to Bozeman, where she was going to college… and that was one hell of a drive! I’d just bought a rod, but I didn’t know the first thing about it… It was September, snow was starting to fall, and as we crossed the Gallatin we pulled over to watch the trout rising… dozens of them… they were rising to the snowflakes! I was done for. The next morning I hired a guide to learn how to fish… that was in 1993… but that’s a story for another day, maybe.
Meanwhile, here we are with Håvard Stubø and his buddies at a lodge where they’re going to land some cutthroats. You know, those trout with the red slash under the gills that looks like they’re bleeding, but it’s actually just their coloring! And then there’s the famous hopper/dropper session! Some folks look down on it, but it works so well!
Alright, enough BS, here’s the third episode!
Jazz & Fly Fishing arrive at The Meadows on Rock Creek, a new guest ranch near Philipsburg, Montana, to chase wild cutthroat trout. The plan is dry flies. The river has other plans.
After the Green River, the band drives north into Montana. Rock Creek is full of wild cutthroat, rainbows, browns and brook trout, but it’s early in the season and almost nothing is rising. Håvard and Joona have to face a hard question: “If we have to use a nymph, we’ll use a nymph.”