Rock Creek

After I left John and his friends and family, I headed to Rock Creek to meet another group of friends. Mike and Dave have been making their annual trips to Montana to escape heat in Florida. They let me stay at their cabin.

Rock Creek was no exception of high-water treatment. At that point, it was more like "river" rather than "creek". It was a bit too cool for wet-wading and I needed my wader to fish the best out of it eventually.

Dry-fly actions are what everyone looks for at Rock!!

We were bothered by bunch of House Flies. So I might as well have tied on the pattern I had tied this spring.

It did work! !

A herd of Mountain Goat was hanging around the road every morning. They were much better road companions than buffaloes in Yellowstone Park!!

I still pursued bull trout by accident (??). This day, I wore my wader to fish hard into deeper runs and pools. I did my best to sink my streamers without my 6wt rod and full-sink line. I felt a big tug, with a natural Home Invader, that was felt like 18-inch or larger.

It was a fine fat rainbow,

just about 15-inch but ran and fought really hard. Over all trout here fight and run harder than trout with the same size in other rivers.

Then another wildlife encounter. I haven't heard from my hunting friends about ID but I bet this is Mountain Lion (cougar or bobcat). I spotted a pair of these maybe 150-yard downstream. I was eye-to-eye through the distance with the larger one that I thought a mother. I was without a bear spray or a big bowie knife. Florida guys didn't have guns either. When I made a move to grab a stick just in case, they ran away. But I felt a bit creepy to fish along so I was pretty much done that morning.

I'd been hearing and reading about Rock Creek but had never made it. So I was very happy to fish there with great fishing friends. I'm sure Rock is one of the most popular rivers in Montana but I didn't see crowds of people. And I heard that fishing goes all well till the end with dry-flies. It's in my favorite list now!!