Secret Spots

If you are someone you fly fishes, or know of a few people that fish, you know that everyone has their secret spots that they fish, and don’t tell anyone about. Maybe they give you vague hints and small details, but not enough to figure out where it is. These places may be tucked away far from any road where the fish eat endlessly and the crowds are non-existent. It may be a stream or river where they go to get away from the busy world and fish for a couple hours. In my opinion, every angler has a desire to find a spot like this. It is something about finding fish that are farther away, exploring new terrain, and being on the water that make this an exciting adventure.

I developed quite a few “secret spots” during my time in the Driftless, and particularity in Northeastern Iowa. There is a lot of water to be fished that takes some effort to get to, but can be very rewarding. Finding these so called “secret spots” demand a variety of things. Fishing the water that you know will ultimately lead you to want to find new water, whether it be close or far away from your typical streams and rivers.

At some point, stagnancy sets in and you get tired of fishing the same water over and over again. You have the motivation to find new water to fish, and so you begin your journey that will hopefully lead you to new water.  Online resources, maps, and word of mouth are all great ways to discover other fish. The way that I found most of these places was simply walking in to the woods or following the stream up and down. You can be amazed by the side channels and pools you find just a couple of minutes off the trails.

In Montana, most of the water is marked on a map and has been fished before by many people. For someone like me who likes to find the small streams to fish near and far from town, talking to people in the shops and coworkers has been a great resource. Everyone know about the Madison and the Gallatin, so I am trying to find spots where not everyone goes. Shops in the area tell customers the same places over and over, so you have to do a bit of searching and get creative by yourself.

One evening I decided to drive away from town to find a spring creek that I had seen on the map. It ended up being very windy, and having to drive a half an hour back to town without fishing was a little disappointing. When looking back on it, I know what that water looks like and it opened up an evening to fish some water closer to town. Turns out, that spot has wild rainbows that will take your size 10 chubby if you present it well. It was like a piece of Iowa, with the fish being 6-12 inches and the stream is only 8 feet across. Your 4wt rod with a 14ft 4x leader and a couple of flies being the only things that you need to catch fish. Wading through small water, getting eaten by mosquitos, and fishing for overzealous trout only 7 minutes from your apartment is pretty neat in a place like Bozeman.

For the rest of the summer I am trying to find more places like these. I have figured that going out and fishing, seeing the water, and walking or driving around are the best ways to discover these places. The fish aren’t as big as the fish elsewhere, but they are certainly more memorable to me. It reminds me of summer trips to the Driftless, where the air is humid and the trout are hungry. Maybe it is the simplicity of the fishing in a small stream like this, or maybe it is the lack of people. Whatever it is, I enjoy it enough to write about it and go back and fish it again.