One of the coolest days of trout fishing I’ve ever experienced was on a Montana alpine lake this past summer with my buddies Bob Meade and Louis Cahill.  We were fly fishing for cutthroats with dry flies, but the catch was we had to chase them down in the drift boat.

I kind of felt like I was bonefishing in a weird way.  The cutties were constantly cruising and sipping bugs, and we had to quickly row the drift boat, sometimes as fast as we could along side them while presenting our fly up ahead of the fish.  Bob told me that a lot of eagles and hawks were in the area that pick off their fare share of trout on the lake.  That’s why the fish were feeding this way, on the move to avoid getting snatched out of the water.  It was pretty challenging to say the least.  The water was crystal clear and the fish were spooky.  You had to be able to present a quick 60-75 foot cast accurately with in a couple feet of the trout.  Even doing so though, many times the fish would change their direction at the last second, and our killer casts would yield nada.

We had a great day on the lake that day.  The cutthroats were brilliant snakes averaging between 15-18 inches and took our small parachute flies and emergers with eagerness.  We saw some awesome takes that day and about another gazillion rises out in the middle of the lake floating along in our driftboat .  Why out in the middle of the lake, you ask?  Well, the banks of the lake are close to wear the eagles and hawks perch.  It’s pretty cool how these fish have learned and adjusted their feeding tactics and survival instincts due to the birds of prey in the area.

We took turns catching cutthroats and manning the oars until the wind picked up and the waves shut down the dry fly fishing.  Then we rowed to the far end of the lake and fished the mouth of a creek feeding into the lake.  There we had some pretty awesome sight fishing to some bigger trout along the edges of the thick grass.

The trout that day weren’t the biggest trout I’ve got by any means, but they were some of the funnest for sure.  It was fast paced fishing which demanded accurate long casts by the anglers.  IT WAS FREAKIN AWESOME :)  I’m really happy my buddy Bob Meade took us to this special alpine lake.  I just wish I had some of these lakes back home.  I totally recommend you trying alpine lake fishing out if you have not before.

Below are some more Killer Photos by Louis Cahill during the day

Is this release shot awesome or what?

Keep it Reel,