The first river I saw upon arrival in Missoula, MT was the Clark Fork. My friend Joe and I had just completed a several day bus ride that began in White Plains, NY before ending in Missoula via New …
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The first river I saw upon arrival in Missoula, MT was the Clark Fork. My friend Joe and I had just completed a several day bus ride that began in White Plains, NY before ending in Missoula via New York City and Chicago. I think it took almost four days to complete that trip. At the time we were both enrolled as students at the university, Joe as a sophomore and I in my first year.
Once we collected our baggage and left the bus terminal, we headed toward the campus. After a short walk we came to a bridge on Higgins Avenue that extended over a very large river. I asked Joe if he knew the name, and he said, “It’s the Clark Fork.” I can recall standing on that bridge looking downstream and feeling the pull that all anglers feel when seeing good-looking trout water for the first time. To top it off, I learned that the Clark Fork flowed right next to the campus, so it was a very short walk away.
Looking back I’m trying to recall the first time that I fished the Clark Fork. It was a long time ago, so details are a bit foggy.
I do recall fishing one late spring day right around Missoula and finding some early stoneflies on the water. It was likely the Skwala hatch, which occurs early on Western rivers. Even though the water was high, I found a trout rising, added a large dry fly to my tippet made a few casts and I landed a nice brown trout.
After that I found easy access to the river across from the campus where the Rattlesnake Creek entered the Clark Fork. Since the river was open all year, if we got a warm spell even in midwinter—which happened upon occasion—I would walk over from the campus. It took about 10 minutes.
At the time, It was legal to take aquatic insects for bait from Montana trout rivers. I would turn over a few rocks, find a few stonefly nymphs, add one to my light wire hook and cast upstream, allowing the bait to sink and bounce along the bottom. I don’t think the Clark Fork trout received a lot of fishing pressure back in the mid ‘60s, because it was very easy to catch a limit of decent size rainbows without a lot of effort.
One of the surprising things I found while cleaning those fish was they were full of cheese curds. It looked like Clark Fork trout were feeding on cottage cheese. When I inquired about this obscure feeding behavior at Bob Ward’s, the local tackle shop, I learned that there was a creamery on the Rattlesnake Creek which discharged waste to the Clark Fork.
Most of the time, when friends and I fished the Clark Fork, it was 16 miles east of Missoula by a bridge near Frenchtown. There is a beautiful pool in that part of the river which makes a left turn before handing under the bridge. Once again we would collect stonefly nymphs for bait. While we never caught any really big trout there, we did catch a lot of brown and rainbow trout in the 12- to 14-inch range.
Up until recently, the upper Clark was the victim of the serious pollution that began once gold was discovered along Silver Bow and Gold Creeks during 1858. After that, copper mining began in the Anaconda/Butte area. Pollution from all that mining activity was discharged into Silver Bow Creek and ultimately the upper Clark Fork. In 1905, the Milltown Dam was built near Frenchtown to provide electricity for a mill near the mouth of the Blackfoot River. Over the many years that facility was in operation, tons of toxic waste from mining runoff settled behind the dam.
In 1983 the EPA declared the upper Clark Fork a Superfund site. Since then, there have been lawsuit settlements with Atlantic Richfield and the Milltown Dam has been removed along with three million tons of toxic sediment. That waste included copper tailings along with residual concentrations of arsenic, which contributed to fish kills over the years.
Despite all the cleanup efforts, the upper Clark Fork from Rock Creek upstream remains a work in progress. Trout populations remain repressed. From Rock Creek downstream trout populations are increasing. The Clark Fork is a big Montana river where access is not easy. The river is bound on both sides by railroad beds along with rock riprap between the tracks and the river. As a result, the Clark Fork is a better float then wading river, with a number of guide services available in the Missoula area. The river supports all the Western mayfly and stonefly species with good hatches throughout the season.
In addition, the Clark Fork is fed by Rock Creek, the Big Blackfoot and Bitterroot Rivers, all excellent trout fisheries themselves. So in addition to the Clark Fork, anglers have these three rivers available to add variety to a trip. Plus, Missoula is a very upscale cosmopolitan city and home to the Montana Grizzlies, with lots of good restaurants and other interesting venues available. An interesting city with a lot of great fishing opportunities, including the Clark Fork, all within a short drive.
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