1 Sep 2008
Happy Labor Day!
Talked to a fisherman at the hotel who recommended fishing at MZ Ranch which is
by the Bozeman airport (Belgrade, MT). Mary Milesnich is shown as the owner on
Google. He had fished there on the private spring creeks and spoke highly about
it. It won’t work this trip but if someone does try it, let us know how it went!
The fisherman thought it would be about $70/day/rod but those prices might be
out of date. He also suggested we might want to check out the McCoy Ranch in
Dillon, MT although it is currently up for sale right now. Now of course, we are
talking about fishing and not actually fishing because it is cold and raining
hard right now.
Off to find coffee we see “River Rising” is closed this Labor Day but about a
block away we see lights in another coffee shop. We find the Zaxon Coffee Shop
to be open. Only a few locals are there. They have really great strong coffee –
they also introduced me to a “shot in the dark” where they add a shot of
espresso to already dark drip coffee—yummm! We chatted with Lisa, Stacy, and
Brooke who were suspicious of my evil empire Starbucks travel mug. To quote
Lisa, “Howard Schultz beware!! This is Zaxon Coffee – not a chain – yet!!” And
if she didn’t say exactly that, I am sure she could have! In the photo,
the girls decide that they are (Left to right) – Brooke
(comedic relief), Lisa (the cute one), and Stacky (holding my Starbucks cup is
the fun one). Their words not mine – honest! While we there awaiting our
coffees, another local lady offered us all a biscotti as she had made too many
that morning for the shop – thanks! and could you not like a place like this any
day but particularly a dreary rainy day!
Back at the hotel, we close up shop and prepare to head toward Anaconda – maybe
the weather will be better over there than here in Hamilton in this on-going
Rain storm……Oh, how little we understood of what was coming!
While awaiting the others, I chatted with a two bicyclists (both genders) who
were cycling through the area toward Yellowstone National Park. The fellow had a
nice yellow Americano bicycle with S&S couplers for travelling with the bike in
airplanes etc. She had a Kona (I think) bicycle. They were cycling in the rain
that morning toward Chief Joseph Pass and heading eastwardly toward YNP (turns
out they will likely go through Wisdom or Jackson on the way!). If it had been
me, given the crummy weather, I might have take a lay day but they looked
seasoned at this bicycle touring business and know their own capabilities.
We gassed up to go over Highway 38 to Anaconda via Georgetown Lake. As we
continue on the highway it turns to gravel – temperatures begin to fall (38F at
9:37) – clearly we think this is the road they were thinking of when the termed
was coined for “the road not taken.” Temperatures continue to fall and the rain
turned to mixed snow/rain and finally just to plain old snow! The snow begins to
stick to the road surface – good thing we all have 4 wheel drive. We come around
a corner and suddenly in front of us is….wow!……Skalkaho Falls coming down right
next to the road.
Fantastic effects in this winter wonderland. I expect to start hearing Christmas Carols on JR’s Sirius XM satellite radio. We reach Skalkaho Pass (7250 feet) at about 10:15 am – snow is really piling up but we should be leaving it as we descend (we hope). Soon we are just in rain again – we stop to fish the West Fork Rock Creek with its tannin colored water but no fish - I think they are all huddled up in front of a gas fireplace which is where we ought to be also! Took a photo of the West Fork Rock Creek by the Sand Basin intersection to capture a “natural” stream structure.
Continuing downhill, we passed Gem Mountain Resort where you can “mine” your own
sapphires. Up here it seems cows have the right of way on the roads.
We stopped at the junction of the East and West Forks of Rock Creek – frothed the water a little with a fishing rod but no luck. It’s cold, let’s move on!
Driving through Philipsburg Valley, we see snow dusted hay fields and grazing
areas. We reach Georgetown Lake – circumnavigating it we discover it
to have about 5 inches of snow on the ground (Pebble Beach access) –
unbelieveable! Hard to imagine, but we saw no fish rising! We may need to break
out the ice flies!
Driving on around the lake, we find the famous Moose Marina we were looking for.
Most boats are tied up. We chatted a little while with Kathy Laslovich who with
her husband run the Marina.
They took it over just 3 years ago when the previous owner was going to close it down and move away. They just run it in the summer and then close down for the winter – only about a week before Kathy was going to close it down anyway. There are some huge fish in the lake as noted by a photo of a lake trout taken from last May – really huge – she said there was still ice on the lake (although not all over) when the fish was caught….from shore!!
We noted lots of homes for sale around the lake. Apparently
the prices (before the subprime finance fiasco) were up quite a bit since there
had been an article in Fortune magazine about the “undiscovered” Georgetown Lake
as a “last great secret place”. Most of the sellers were locals trying to cash
out when the market was peaking although it may have already peaked and be
heading back down.
Leaving Georgetown Lake, we continued toward Anaconda – 40F and raining.
I am thinking this is winter steelhead weather and not summer trout fishing
weather.
We find our Anaconda lodging at Trade Wind Motel (1600 E. Commercial Ave., Anaconda, MT 59711 406-563-3428, 1-800-243-3428, www.tradewindmotel.com , Kal & Wydette Demechki, owners)
Kal said “they” had been catching 40-50 fish per day on Georgetown Lake prior to this cold front moving in. Just our (bad) luck – I don’t think we will fly fish there in the snow today. We elect to head over to the Job Corps ponds on I-90 (Warm Springs), to look for big brown trout. Temps of 47F and lower – raw, punishing weather. We gear up and find the stream structure all changed – no big deep hole for holding water as before!
Streams are weedy and somewhat shallow. We spread out and cover the options trying all kinds of nymphs, emergers, dries, and M-80 firecrackers (no – actually we did not use any explosives – we just wanted to!!) but could raise no, nada, zero, zilch fish. Talking to some other anglers we find that no one has seen a fish other than in a picture this day. We reluctantly leave the streams as evening falls.
Reaching Anaconda, we decide McDonalds is not our cuisine of
choice however there is not that many options in Anaconda on the evening of
Labor Day. One friendly casino clerk suggested we try the bowling alley
restaurant as they have a 24/7 diner…..hmmmmm We sidle over to the Anaconda
Copper City Bowl (1500 East Park, Anaconda, MT 59711 406-563-3427) and find they
have great late night food with good portions. Nice folks running the place –
this is a great find!!
Back at the hotel, scotch & trail mix entertain us while we watch UCLA beat
Tennessee in a football game which goes into overtime.