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ChuckNGaleRobbins.com |
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FFGMT Nymphs Pheasant-tail Beadhead Prince Hare's Ear Soft Hackle Salmon River Special Montana Stone Yuk Bug Serendipity
Streamers Clouser Minnow Wooly Bugger
Dries Parachute Adams Goddard Caddis Elk-hair Caddis Improved X-caddis Caddis Emerger Compara Spinner Royal Wulff Stimulator (Orange) Royal Trude Sparkle Dun Griffith's Gnat Black Ant
Essential Knots
Nail Knot Clinch Knot Improved Clinch Knot Blood Knot or Double Surgeons Knot
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Introduction
Where to start? Montana is a big place. Break it down any way you want—cricks, smaller rivers, bigger rivers, ponds, lakes, reservoirs, cold water/warm water, prairie, foothills, mountains, geographic regions, political boundaries—but, in the end, the total is nothing short of mind-boggling. The task of adequately describing it all between the covers of a single book seems daunting to say the least. I suppose it all depends on your fly-angling aspirations. Do you want to sample it all or just hit the high points, or perhaps just scope out one or two new ones and leave it at that? To everyone who falls in the latter two categories all I can say is, I'm envious. To you poor souls who want it all, well, I can sympathize. As far back as I can recall, no piece of fly water ever existed that I didn't long to cast over. For many years Gale and me have wandered Montana's fly waters, blessed with the freedom of the self-employed and driven by the need to eat and pay the rent. The end result of course is more time on the water than most. After all, we do this for a living. Still, we've barely managed to scratch the surface. There's no way I could have written the book without the ideas, information, and other contributions of knowledgeable anglers from around the state. This is a guidebook, a crutch to help readers locate and find access to a large selection of the better fly waters out there. As I realize all too well, such a selection is highly subjective; no doubt, your own list would differ. But to everything there must be a beginning and end, and so I made my list, presented it for criticism to anyone who would hold still long enough, pondered the suggested changes, made the requisite additions and subtractions, received the publisher's stamp of approval and went for it. But there was one more step: after finalizing the list, before the actual writing began, each water had to pass the litmus test: "If I tell on this water will it be able to withstand the heat of increased notoriety?" There aren't many secrets left out there in the fly fishing world, and believe me I thought long and hard before letting any more out the bag. On the other hand I have included a few once formerly great waters which for a variety of reasons have since fallen on hard times. Why didn't I just eliminate these troubled waters altogether? For a couple reasons: 1) Troubled waters need friends; if I write about them and you read about them, maybe we'll all work harder at restoring these lost gems; and 2) Because I am the eternal optimist, continuing to believe that somehow, someway, someday we will, as a society, come to our senses and fix the insanities we've visited upon our environment. We all have an obligation to protect the world's resources. Yes, I know, some of these passages sound a lot like environmental rhetoric. In a way I guess some are, but don't get me wrong. I live in a house, use electricity, eat beef, heat with natural gas, drive a gas guzzling pickup, wear leather boots, and all the rest of it. When I bitch about irrigation demands and draw-downs and subdivisions and overrun rivers, I really do realize I'm part of the problem. But that doesn't change the responsibility we all share. Fish can't help themselves, but we can. If that means cutting back on irrigation to keep our rivers flowing during dry years, so be it. If urban sprawl threatens fisheries, we are the only ones who can stop it. If our rivers are too crowded for the good of the resource we need to find ways to reduce the problem. If drilling for natural gas threatens a watershed, we need to fix it or forget it. Cost? Does it matter? A world without trout, or bass, or pike, or whatever, a world of dried-up rivers—what sort of world would that be?" As Thomas McGuane put it so succinctly years ago: "If wild trout are lost, smash the state!" Amen. Here's to tight lines and fun fishing. I hope this book helps you on your own explorations of Montana's wonderful waters. -Chuck Robbins, Dillon, Montana
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