FIVE HORN RIVERS, MONTANA, 2011

5 Rivers 2011 Trip Report
September 16-22, 2011
Five Rivers Lodge, Dillon, Montana
14 hrs CE
Painful Decisions
Steven M. Fox, MS, DVM, MBA, PhD

The Beaverhead Valley of southwest Montana is a 1.5 to 2 hour ride from the Bozeman airport and is one of the best trout fly fishing destinations in the lower 48. The Five Rivers Lodge is within a 1 hour drive to 5 of the most outstanding Blue Ribbon Trout Rivers anywhere: Beaverhead, Big Hole, Jefferson, Madison and Ruby. In planning for this program, I had been there the year before and knew it would be difficult to get everyone back to the lodge for CE programs before dinner. For most 14 hour CE programs, this has been a 5 night, 4 day fishing schedule but that would not work well at Five Rivers. So an extra day was added at the beginning with arrival Thursday, 6 hours CE Friday, then 2 hours CE each day before leaving for the fishing destinations. Attendees really liked the format and recommended we do this for programs in the future.

The water levels in the rivers of Montana in 2011 were not normal. There was large snow pack, a late snow melt and higher than expected rain fall in the spring which all made many of the trout streams east of Bozeman unfishable until mid to late summer. The Beaverhead Valley was not impacted near like the rest of Montana but the flows were turned up about 10 days before our arrival. This was done to drop the reservoir levels in preparation to hold the expected large snow pack and rain for 2012. So the rivers available for fishing were the Beaverhead, Big Hole and Ruby. Add in factors of low morning temperatures for waters that feed the Big Hole and moss being stirred up because of high river flows, most of our fishing was on the Beaverhead. The Ruby was fished one day and we each fished the Big Hole one day; all the rest were on the BH which wasn't all bad. We fished very small nymphs as a dropper and for dries, a Thing a Ma Bobber or large dry strike indicator. Five wt, 9 ft fly rods were the norm. Throwing lead takes a little time to get used to and nobody gets any style points with this type of casting.

For this trip, Dr. Steve Fox provided an outstanding CE program. Dr. Laurie Howarth with her husband Bill Chapman made the trip from Waldoboro, Maine. Dr. Michael Mulvany has a small animal practice in San Diego, CA and Dr. Scott Mays is from Frisco, TX. Five Rivers Lodge is a 38,000 sq ft facility but it does not seem that big when you are there. The lodge started as a house in the 70's, and Jay and Mary just kept adding on and renovating. They have a library which suited our needs perfectly. They set up a table where we could have breakfast and Steve had us captured for all the sessions. I brought the LCD projector that plugged into Steve's computer and the lodge provided the screen. Two hours each morning and we were good to go to the fishing beats by 9:00 a.m. We were treated to one of the most incredible presentations on pain management for small animals that I have ever encountered. Steve had prepared 9 pain modules and this is what we were given for this program - outstanding!! All that and Steve became a fairly good fly angler at least with the chuck and duck technique we had to use most of the time and he caught his first trout on a dry.

Even with the challenges, we hooked a lot of fish and a lot of big fish; browns and rainbows. Most of the fish we landed were in the 17" to 19" range and these fish really have an attitude. The land to hook ratio for the BH can be as low as 3 out of 10 and the high fast water did not help. Some did better than that but when fishing with size 22 nymph hooks on size 5 or 6 tippets, either the hook doesn't stick or the fish gets airborne in a hurry and breaks off. Just have to bow on these fish or the guide gets busy putting together another rig. Even with that, each of us hooked some really big trout that never got to the net. That's just the way it is on the Beav. The guides were great and were super patient under these conditions of fast current. The weather was cool and clear in the morning and warmed up in the afternoon. But no rain.

The hospitality at FRL was outstanding and everyone raved about the food: gourmet all the way. We all had a great time and will very likely go there again, perhaps in 2013.

Don Sawyer, Organizer