Packrafting Adventure on the South Fork of the Flathead

I glanced down off the trail and noticed a deep pool with a strong current going through it.  It was a steep downhill slide to the pool, but if I had learned anything about backcountry fishing, it was that pools like this are worth fishing.  I scrambled down and let my “hopper-dropper” float through the rapid.  The hopper almost immediately popped under, indicating something had taken my “dropper” (in this case a copper john).  I caught one hard-fighting, 16” cut-throat on each sides of the pool.  As I climbed back onto the trail, I felt fully alive and in love with backcountry fishing.  Over a fire that night, my friend Benn and I discussed our amazing two days of fishing in the Bob Marshall. 

As good as it was, two full days of tough hiking was a high price to pay for two full days of fishing.  If only we could just continue down the river, past the remote ranger station at Big Prairie, through the narrow canyon slots and walk out into the Spotted Bear parking lot forty-some miles to the north.  As tempting as that was, we only had four days.  A trip like that would take more than a week if we hoped to hike it and fish just the best spots as we walked.  Plus, we’d be completely exhausted from hiking hard to keep pace in-between fishing holes.  Not that we’re against exhaustion, but this was a fishing trip, not endurance training.  Of course there was always the raft option.  We had some connections to horses and rafts, but the logistics and costs involved in an endeavor like that get difficult quickly.  As we hiked out on the fourth day, we decided one way or the other we had to come back, even if it meant a ten-day trip to do the river full justice.

Then we discovered packrafts!  Small, durable, ultralight, inflatable, packable (weigh less than 5lbs and pack to the size of a 2-man tent), high-performing, rafts designed for the Alaskan wilderness.    Three years after that first trip into the Bob, we went back in, this time with Benn’s brother, another mutual friend and my wife.  The trip took six days.  One day of hard hiking, one day that involved several portages around log jams and four days of uninterrupted fishing and floating bliss!  Our meals were amazing as each one of us tried to outdo the other with our assigned night of cooking (meals included: jumbleia, chicken dumplings, Paiute mountain pizza, fish burritos, and pad Thai).   Fishing was excellent, although the fish were slightly picky at times.  We saw bull trout on two occasions and the second one bit into a 10” cutthroat that was being reeled in.  Camping spots were excellent and even included an island one night.  We stopped and saw a girl who was in our wedding at the Big Prairie ranger station.  This isolated settlement seems to come straight from the 1870s and is an experience in itself.

We ended our trip in the picturesque slot canyons that take you to the edge of Meadow Creek Gorge (a dangerous class IV + stretch of river that we decided to save for a later date when we have more experience and helmets).   We actually missed the pull-out (a sign that says “danger pull out now”) and had to climb up a small slot cliff, but with packrafts this is easily done!  Benn’s family was even nice enough to shuttle our car back to Hungry Horse so we ate the customary burger, fries and shake and returned home. 

During the planning stages of this trip, I decided to buy two packrafts rather than rent them with the intention of starting my own rental company.  The time for that is now here!  Backcountry Packrafts Rentals LLC is officially open for business!  As I researched packrafts I realized the myriad of other outdoor activities packrafts can be combined with.  You would be amazed at what you can load on a packraft and still be able to run rapids.  A short list of activities to be combined with packrafting include:  fishing, hunting, mountain biking, skiing, camping, mountaineering, rock climbing and canyoneering.  Packrafts are the ultimate Montana raft because they are capable of running Montana rapids and add to so many things Montanan’s already enjoy.  Not a Montanan?  We ship anywhere in the lower 48!  So check us out backcountrypackrafts.com: a company that’s true Montana!

Montanans and Their Secret Spots

It was eleven fifteen on a Thursday morning and my friend Grey rubbed his eyes like a groggy bear in April.  “I passed on a rag-horn this morning,” he told me rather nonchalantly as we walked to class in the business building at the University of Montana in Missoula. 

“Really?!?”  I gasped.  At that point in my hunting career I hadn’t shot a bull elk and even now, I’ll squeeze the trigger on any legal bull.  “Where were you?” I asked, wondering how he could have been so close to Missoula that he was able to make it back in time for class.

“I can’t tell you,” he replied in a hushed tone, “it’s a good spot and I can’t let it get out.”

It doesn’t matter if its huckleberries or big game, Montanans are incredibly tight-lipped about their “spots”.   When my brother-in-law married into my wife’s family, she gave him a map of Montana with several “spots” circle as a way of welcoming him into the family during her maid of honor speech (the map did not contain accurate locations of game but was more of a symbolic gesture).   Even among family members, I have found that Montanans, especially the ones who live close to big towns, are very reluctant to give up their go-to-spots. 

The reason for this reluctance is sometimes justified.  Once you tell someone where your spot is, everyone they know and their dog will be there, ruining your spot.  It is hard to find places within a forty-five minute drive of bigger Montana towns that have good fishing, hunting or berry-picking.  Even hiking and floating “spots” may be guarded as the obvious spots for these activities may become extremely crowded.  Once you are lucky enough to find one of these spots, you’re unlikely to give it up.  And if you do tell someone, it definitely won’t be a Californian or someone from another state.  Lying to out-of-staters is not considered morally wrong, especially to Californians who seem to have a propensity to love Montana so much that they buy your favorite fishing spot and then deny you access.

My philosophy on spots:  I have given away a couple “spots” since I started writing this blog about a year ago.  I may not have explained specific directions, but I’ve definitely given away more information than many Montanans would.  I guess I have little fear of this backfiring on me for two reasons: most people are not very motivated and those that are already have spots they are attached to.  Most outdoorsmen (Montanans or not) don’t have the time, ability or desire to drive more than two hours (one way) and then hike more than three miles from the road.  It’s usually the distance hiked from the road that gets them.  The people that are willing to go to these places usually have a spots of their own.  Regardless of the actual quality of their spot, they are often unnaturally attached to it for sentimental reasons.  If I tell someone and they’re willing to spend the time, effort and commitment to get there, more power to them.   To me, the only spots worth keeping secret are the ones your lazy friends might ruin for you.  I helped my former roommate shoot a deer on public land 1/3 of a mile from the road, a road that is a fifteen minutes from my house.  That spot is worth keeping a secret.