Dog Creek – Near Elliston

June 2008

I decided to take a little motorcycle ride on Sunday, June 29^th, to break in my new Cabela’s 5-piece Stowaway rod. As much as I’m falling for my Ferrari Day Care rod, it’s a bit long to be hauling into the woods strapped to my motorcycle. The Stowaway packs up to all of about 18”, which makes it small enough to tie onto my Camelback.

What a glorious Sunday. The skies were as clear as they look in the pictures. Few people were enjoying this part of Montana with me at the time. The flowers were crazy blooming and many flowering trees still in bloom.

Just over MacDonald Pass and the Continental Divide from Helena is Dog Creek. I was planning to hit the lower end of it near Elliston and then move to the Little Blackfoot River. The day was so beautiful and the motorcycle riding so good that I ended fishing the creek near where it comes to U.S. 12 and then just looking at the Little Blackfoot at a couple places above and below Elliston. It looked fishable, but the day got the best of me and I rode up Snowshoe and down Hope Creek back to the top of Dog Creek. All these pictures are from the latter end as I forgot to take the camera out of my pack earlier in the day.

Water

The creeks and rivers on the west side of the Continental Divide look good. Both Dog Creek and the Little Blackfoot are plenty clear for fishing. Both are full, but not overflowing. They’ll dwindle soon enough this summer (it got to 95F in Helena later in the afternoon). Further on the plus side, the Hope Creek trail was largely dried up. It can be a real bear early in the summer.

Fishing

I ended up catching a whitefish on a hare’s ear and five trout. One of the trout came on the hare’s ear and the remainder on a baetis dry (24?) The big surprise of the day – well, after the whitefish, was that all the others were Westslope Cutthroat Trout. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised because they’re not all that uncommon in headwaters creeks here. Those caught were small: from 8 to 12 inches. They’re fighting little buggers, though. The larger three were caught lower on the creek where there’s more water and feed.

The trout in two pictures below shows some unusual markings on its jaw. I didn’t notice that it was injured, not notice similar markings on the others. The cutthroat slash under the chin is obvious from the time the fish first break water, of course.