Brad Pitt's Montana

Like many of you, my only real exposure to Montana was from watching Brad Pitt in “A River Runs Through it,” which I saw over 10 years ago.  However, knowing I would eventually go through Montana , I thought I should brush up on my Montanaisms, by watching it again.  I thought the 10-2 casting instruction offered up by Brad Pitt’s dad in the movie could come in handy. 

One of my goals for this trip was to take full advantage of any opportunity to do the cool things that a particular area is known for.  Thus, when in Montana you really must try fly fishing.  After a bit of research, I identified an outfitter who selected a private guide for my first fly fishing experience. 

When I met Billy Pfeiffer, I was expecting someone who was born and bred in Montana, grew up fly fishing and had no real need or understanding of us “big city folks”.  Boy I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Billy grew up outside Philadelphia, went to undergraduate school at Bucknell, moved to Montana to find himself and go to law school.  Not only has he finished law school and passed the bar but he’s also a practicing Buddhist – thus he’s a paradox on many fronts.  Our conversation over the nearly six hours we were together on the river ranged from meditation, to what we learned from our parents, to Philly sports, to environmental law to fishing practices of bald eagles.  We talked about everything.  Billy was a wealth of knowledge that went way beyond fly fishing and I enjoyed every minute of it.

But anyways, back to fly fishing.  So my expectations of fly fishing (based upon the movie of course), was that it was going to be incredibly technical with almost no chance that I would ever catch a fish.  In fact, I only scheduled a half-day session, because I was afraid that I would be so frustrated with the technical process and the lack of catching fish that a full-day would be too much.  Once again, I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Billy was an awesome instructor.  We started out with a short 30 minutes of casting instruction on the beach into the water before we actually shoved off the beach.  He explained the intricacies of what a fish is looking for, how you select your flies, where to drop your fly, how to “jiggle” it, and all the while made it incredibly fun.  When I did something stupid like flipping the fly into my face or getting it caught in a tree overhanging the river he made it feel like it was no biggie.  He would say things like “great cast,” or “nice feel for the line”.  Things that really gave me confidence in what I was doing – he likened it to golf.  A good cast -- being like a good golf shot.  When you do it just right once and you want to do it again, and again, and again.

The plan for success was to set the fly near the edge of the water, preferably in a shaded area where lazy fish like to hang around, then when the trout decide to come up and take a bite out of the fly you quickly “reverse tomahawk” your line and the fish bites and you have a winner.  Unfortunately, an hour into our float I was pretty certain I was going to get shut out.  We had a couple of small nibbles, but nothing really biting.  I was drinking Tecate (still brand loyal, even on vacation), enjoying the sun and the conversation, thus if I got shut out, it was no biggie.  However, as luck would have it, I caught my first of five fish shortly thereafter.  The first was huge – 16 inches in length and considered a mixed breed of Rainbow and Brown Trout.  It was beautiful, though a bit slippery, particularly when I tried to hold it to get a picture…it got dropped right back into the river.  Montana is a catch and release state, thus it was going back anyway.  Over the course of the day, I caugh five fish.  It was an incredible day

So far, fly fishing reigns supreme on my trip of experiences.  The only thing that could have made it better was if my dad could have been with me, because anyone who knew him, knows nobody loves a good fish story better than Gillie!