The Heartland

Welcome Cowboy Poets

Smoldering, after rain all day, the sun
sets fire to saffron yellow logs
the barn hunkers on. Coffee Creek
cuts a swath we hop across,
green to more green,
and whitetail deer, sudden
as stump mushrooms and rust red
with summer hair, browse
brisket deep-dash of paprika
on this timothy green. We unravel
worms from roots we spade
to the surprise of light. Our fingers
chill pink, and riffles
cater our bait to trout,
to that hearty tug we hunger for
as love: boy and girl in mint
Montana green, willow
Indian stringer of rainbow
swinging in cadence
as we sail the hayfield home.

The Color of Trout, by Paul Zarzyski

Who said we didn't know anything 'bout roughstock poetry? We're culture vultures over here at WRWT.

Double Rainbow - Lewistown, Montana

A little over 100 miles east of Great Falls, Montana is a little spring creek that is the crown jewel of Lewistown. Born from snowmelt off the Big Snowy and Judith Mountains, and flowing at a constant rate of 130 CFS with a constant temperature of 52F, it's source is the Madison Limestone Formation and the third largest spring in the world. It's a blue ribbon trout stream by anyones standard. Everyone has heard of it, so how come nobody fishes it?

Big Spring Creek - F.A.S. - Lewistown, Montana

Public access is excellent with no less than 6 official Montana FAS' scattered both above and below town. And it's obvious the locals are very proud of their little spring creek too. The access sites are impeccably maintained and I never saw a single piece of streamside litter during my entire stay there. Come to think of it, I never saw another fisherperson either even though I did see another truck parked at an FAS once.

Upper Big Spring Creek Valley

From it's source, 9 miles southwest of Lewistown at the Big Spring Hatchery in the foothills of the Big Snowies, it meanders 26 miles through a geometric patchwork of farms, fields and towns to it's confluence with the Judith River northwest of town.

Brewery Flats - Lewistown, Montana

Upstream from town the creek resembles a typical spring creek both in character and sport. Other than trico spinners, which the fish completely ignored, hatches of aquatic insects were essentially non-existent while I was there during the August doldrums and at first I was dumbfounded as to how to take fish from these fertile flows. Prospecting the water with a small parachute Adams or elk hair caddis produced squat, tiny bead head nymphs in the riffles -Nada. I didn't have a clue. Obviously I needed to read my copy of the Chief's literary tour-de-force Caddis & a Bead Head again as soon as I get it back from Craig Mathews and Mike Lawson, and that couldn't happen fast enough for me since I only had 2 1/2 days to spend in this little slice of paradise found.

Wild Big Spring Rainbow

In the meantime my luck started to pick up a little once I tied on a parachute hopper and started probing the faster riffles, runs, drop-offs and current seams. Big Spring Creek is predominantly a wild rainbow stream but it also has it's fair share of German brown trout too. Up to 3,000 pounds of trout live in each mile of this productive stream on the edge of the prairie.

Big Spring Creek - Lewistown, Montana

Good spawning substrate upstream of town keeps the stream well supplied with cagey, hard fighting rainbows and browns, but the constant year around temperature profile seems to limit aquatic insect diversity as it does on so many true spring creeks. Here you'll find your typical spring creek staples of midges, baetis, pale morning duns, trico's & caddis.

Brewery Flats #2

In the not to distant past this section of the creek was home to a railroad switching yard, a coal mine, oil refinery and a brewery. The creek was channelized to run straight alongside Upper Spring Creek Road to make room for all this industry. After the various industries closed up shop in the mid 1980's, and with strong local support, the Brewery Flats Conservation Committee, along with a little help from their friends to the tune of over $365,000 in grants performed a feasibility study in 1995 and then hired Inter-Fluve, Inc. of Bozeman in 1998 to restore the natural meanders & vegetation to the 23 acre site. The creek is now replete with undercut banks and S-turns in these upper reaches of the creek just downstream of the hatchery.

Big Spring Creek - Downstream of Lewistown

But it's the water below town that I fell in love with and the character of the water down here is simply phenomenal in a way like I've never seen before. Classic text book type stuff. An excellent riffle/pool ratio, S-turns one right after another for miles on end, deep lunker pools of 6-8 feet on the outside of every bend with immaculate pea sized gravel on the inside, undercut banks, woody debris, weedbeds, unmanicured riparian vegetation, cattail marshes, willow thickets, etc. Those are the Judith Mountains in the background of the above photo.

Big Spring Brown Trout

The big browns eluded me on this trip, but I know they're there sulking in those unbelievably deep bend pools. I'm already planning my return trip to take another crack at 'em during a viable hatch but first I need to get some advice from Matt & the Chief who are the resident big brown trout experts on the staff.

Hruska - Lewistown, Montana

August is hopper-tunity time on the lower end of Big Spring Creek. I wouldn't exactly call the fishing easy during my brief visit, and I'm not big on counting coup, but I would estimate that I landed between 10-12 fish (mostly rainbows with a few browns), ranging in size from 10" to 15", by pitching Schroeder's parachute hoppers during each of my first two days on the creek. For a relatively small creek this stream sure pushes a lot of water for late summer. Assiniboine and Blackfoot Indians once camped & hunted along this stream. Unlike the Shoshone, I don't believe they were fish eaters.

Big Spring Creek - Lewistown, Montana

There was a nice heavy fall of trico spinners in the morning on the water below town. I saw only a single fish rise to those little white sonofa#&*^%@*#$% and it was in a nearly impossible location to pitch a good cast. I was lucky enough to J-hook a slack line cast right in there on my first attempt but but it never rose to my fly and I never saw the fish again after that.

Round River

Never in my life have I seen so many S-turns on a stream before. Here, 1/2 mile as the crow flies would translate into 1 1/2 miles of linear stream course. Not only did these S-turns carve out some great habitat but it sure made walking from pool to pool a lot easier, not to mention walking back to the truck, as it was just a short jog across each finger of dry land in between bends.

Big Spring Creek

What would a blue ribbon trout stream be without lots of in-stream woody debris to carve out some high quality brown trout habitat? That's one problem Big Spring Creek doesn't need to worry about. The shallow water in the foreground drops off precipitously to 4'-5' as it nears the fallen tree on the far bank.

Lewistown Courthouse
Classic architecture in Montana's last best town.

Parting shot: The Nuclear Heartland

Outside of Great Falls, Montana.

The Augusta performance at 2, we'd place again,
then sneak off to our favorite Dearborn spot.
We'd take some chips and beer and cheese,
skinny dip, dry off in the breeze,
build a fire, fry the trout we caught...
...beneath Montana's blue roan skies
and a bucking horse moon

-Bucking Horse Moon, by Paul Zarzyski