First, hating to state to obvious, it is simply hard to imagine a place with more amazingly beautiful places to fish.

Also, even Alissa had a good time fishing. I gave her some lessons about fly casting and learned that I am a very bad teacher. Despite my inability, she still caught some fish!

The brookie highlight for me was on the hike up to Glacier lake, a beautiful alpine lake in the Beartooths, where I caught two fat (delicious) 12-inch pink-fleshed brookies, the biggest I have ever caught.

But the biggest highlight of all was certainly my trip to the Bighorn, thanks to a very nice guy, Paul Morrison (see his great fly site, http://www.rockymountainfly.com). I had met him online on some forums and he was very helpful with his fishing advice. He very generously offered to take me down to the Bighorn and fish in his drift boat, which is definitely the best way to fish the river since access is limited by the fact that it goes through the Crow Reservation.

I like these old cars used as erosion control on the bank. Good recycling!

We had a great day fishing and got into some nice fish, making me understand why the Bighorn has the reputation it does. I ended up catching the biggest brown and the biggest rainbow I have ever caught, both about 20". I caught the Brown at the end of a riffle right near the 3-mile access put in, nymphing with a little prince nymph. I had no net and no camera on me and it took me forever to coax the big brown up out of the deeper water at then end of the riffle so that I could land and release him. That was an exciting way to get the day started! But the day wasn't over--at one of the next spots we stopped we could see a ton of enormous rainbows around our feet. I couldn't believe them! I ended up catching one of them on a little sow bug imitation. It's the biggest rainbow I have ever caught, too. You can tell that I am pretty excited about this one too!

We caught quite a few other nice fish that day too, and it was a blast. Thanks again to Paul for showing me such a good time!
Over all, I would say that my fishing in Montana this year was great! I caught the biggest Brookie, Rainbow and Brown of my life. My fishing bug is, temporarily, satisfied...