The Magic of Montana

There are some places that live in your imagination long before you ever step into them. For us, Montana was one of those places – big skies, wide valleys, epic hatches, and the kind of trout fishing that draws fishers from everywhere. We came to film an episode of Wild fish. Wild places., but what we carried home was more than footage.

These are glimpses of a trip where we met wild hatches, where drift boats carried laughter downstream, and where one brown trout turned into a memory for life.  

The Mighty Mo

Fishing is like comedy; it is all about timing. We arrived at the Missouri River, the legendary Mighty Mo, just in time for the epic Pale Morning Duns (PMD) hatch. From what I understood, it had arrived about ten days earlier than usual, so that felt like a good start (or one less excuse). 

I had never experienced a hatch like that before; it was quite something. There were duns and spinners everywhere, and you can imagine my frustration: I’d make what I thought was a perfect cast, only to watch a beautiful trout take the real dun right next to my fly – almost every time. The fish were moving constantly, with so much food on the surface, it felt impossible to believe they’d ever choose mine. 

After a while, though, luck turned. Rusty duns and spent spinners I picked up at the Trout Shop in sizes 16–18 worked wonderfully well. Local guides told us that if you hit the Missouri under the right conditions, you have a real chance at a day you’ll never forget. For me, this was that day.

It’s also such a social kind of fishing. Drifting downstream, we took turns: one person rowing, one casting, swapping after each fish. When you blew a cast at a rising trout or missed a take, it didn’t matter – another chance would always come along. And somehow, sharing those mistakes made the whole thing even more fun. 

A massive thank you to Callum, Caley, Simon and Rob – awesome guiding, great company in the boat, and your passion for fishing is contagious!

In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.

A River Runs Through It

Blackfoot River

We landed in Missoula, jet-lagged and excited. We went straight down to the Blackfoot and the drift boats to meet Peter and Jason at the drift boats. I had no idea what to expect. Back home in Sweden we don’t fish from drift boats, so this was another in a growing list of new fishing experiences for me – and I was instantly sold. Drifting gives you access to water you could never reach on foot and the rhythm of the boat adds its own kind of magic to the day.

My dream was to fish the famous salmon fly hatch. Unfortunately, runoff was in full swing – with thirty-degree heat melting snow from the mountains and colouring the river fast. Still, I couldn’t believe my eyes at how big the fly imitations were. Fishing from a boat like this meant always moving downstream at different speeds, always ready to throw those big flies into the hot spots tight to the bank, under structure, or in the shadow lines on a bright sunny day.

Guide Peter’s enthusiasm made every cast exciting – “Good job Emilie,” he’d say, reminding me to mend, work the fly, stay sharp. His system was simple: “I’ll manoeuvre the boat, you throw darts. That’s all.”

It was such a unique fishing experience. The magic lay in rhythm of the day – boat, coffee, oars, cast, coffee, mend, drift, fish on, repeat. It was one of those days where there was nothing to do but go with the flow. Perfect.

Montana gave us more than trout. It shared its wild nature and rhythms with us, turning anxious excitement over gear and logistics into a gentle hum of oars and casts – rises, refusals, laughter, and quiet. And every so often, it gave us that one fish that makes a day last a lifetime.

Watch the film.

The solution to any problem – work, love, money, whatever – is to go fishing, and the
worse the problem, the longer the trip should be.

John Gierach