Fly Fishing the Beaverhead River

The last state we visited on our 2021 cross country road trip was Montana. Our opportunities here were vast, but we decided to take a more focused approach so instead of trying to visit as many rivers as possible, we decided to spend more time in just a few places. Our first stop was The town of Dillion. There are numerous fly fishing options around Dillion, but we chose to fish the Beaverhead River during our visit. The river was low and less than thirty feet across in most place which allowed for wading long stretches of river with little effort. Our first day we euronymphed with some success. Olive mayfly nymphs and sowbugs were doing the trick. Areas where small riffles dropped into buckets were great spots to pick up brown trout but there were many deep slow pools that I did not feel I was fishing as well as I could using the euronymph rod, so the next day we fished using 5 weights with nymphs under a strike indicator. Being able to use a longer slower presentation in the larger pools produced more and larger brown trout. During the following days there were baetis hatches in the afternoon which produced some decent dry fly fishing. Our best opportunities came when we found brown trout feeding in deeper riffles. For me, using a size 20 blue wing olive pattern is one of the most difficult techniques in fly fishing, but we were rewarded with some nicer brown trout. On our last day I watched a brown feeding along a seam on a cut bank on the far side of the river. The trout was feeding consistently and the prime position made me think it could be a nicer fish. Getting a consistent drift and seeing my fly all the way across the river was challenging. I attempted multiple drifts over the fish but struggled to get a consistant drift and shut the fish down. After giving the fish a bit of a break I saw feeding again in the same spot and decided to try again. I moved slightly upstream to attempt more of a downstream drift with less of a need for a big mend. After being rejected a few more time I got a nice drag free drift and the fish I had been watching came up and sipped my fly. That beautiful brown trout ended up being my biggest and last fish on the Beaverhead River.