#bikefishing Montana and Idaho

This Summer, we hopped on some bikes, and rode from West Yellowstone, Montana, to our headquarters in Driggs, Idaho.  Using old railroad trails we were able to link up the 100 miles or so on mostly all dirt.

Along the way we passed by several amazing fisheries.  The first beautiful fishery was right outside W. Yellowstone called the S. Fork of the Madison River.  Luckily we went in and saw Craig Matthews at Blue Ribbon Flies before hitting the trail because he told us that the S. Fork barely holds any fish in the Summer time.  We obviously had to stop and check for ourselves but had no luck there, so we cruised right past it.

The first day of the trip we rode about 35 miles.  Disappointed in the lack of fishing for most of that first day we were super pleased to cross over a small, slow moving stream that looked promising.  We parked our bikes by the bridge and one of us headed up and the other down.  After about 20 minutes of catching a few really small fish we met up again and fished a little farther up.  We must have found the right stretch because the brook trout were slamming our flies hard off the top.  After each landing a good number of feisty, 8-14 inch Brook Trout, we decided it was time to continue on our way.

We came to another bridge further down the path.  We parked our bikes and checked it out.  To our extreme surprise, there sat a 24" Brown trout right below us, snacking heavily on nymphs.  Hearts racing, we quickly tied on some nymphs and took turns casting to him.  It was hard to get the right angle and make sure he didn't spook but after 20 minutes of casting to him he finally looked up at a dry fly that Lars had on and slowly slurped it.  The battle was on.  Lars jumped in after him but the Brown quickly took off for some debris stacked under the bridge and broke him off.  I bet Lars will think about that fish for a long time.

After some much needed freeze dried dinners and a great nights sleep we were at it again.  The second day we did about 50 miles.  We fished two particular rivers that were fantastic.  The first few fish of day two were rainbow, whitefish, brook trout, brown trout.  Grand slam to start the day is never a bad thing.  We both caught too many fish too count, and it turned out to be a great day of riding through fields with the Tetons in the background for most of the time.  

The last day we rode the remaining 15 miles early in the morning and got to work at about 830.  100 miles of biking, 100 fish or so, and some good views sounds like a pretty good trip to me.  Although next time we decided it would be fun to go somewhere more remote with some more singletrack options.  Hit us up if you have any ideas or if you want more details about the trip!