No Pic TR: Clark Fork near Superior MT

[Harry]

Spent yesterday on a drift boat near Superior MT on the Clark Fork. Sorry, no pics.

Nothing large to report, but what I think is good news is how many small fish we saw. We boated way over 75 fish under 10 inches, cutthroats, rainbows, and hybrid cut-bows. Plus a ton that were striking at our hoppers but their mouths were too small. It was like this for 10 miles, about a pod or two every quarter of a mile.

The reason I am posting this seemingly worthless TR is that this stretch of water has been hit pretty hard the past 2 or 3 years after the environmental cleanup and dam removal just upstream of Missoula. I think yesterday was a good sign that in a few years this river is going to be awesome.

[neckdeep]

The entirety of the middle and lower Teton River canyon, from 1 mile below Bitch Creek to the confluence with the Henry's, was totally destroyed when the dam failed. Millions of cubic tons of saturated canyon slopes collapsed and buried the old bedrock channel under a 30 mile long debris field. It will probably be another 200 years before the landslide section starts to resemble a normal river channel and canyon slope again. But the fishing is so good now that folks drop $550 to get a fishing guide to take them down through the rapids. To quote Aristotle: "Nature abhors a vacuum". If the Teton can come back, the Clark Fork will have no problem.

[schwerty]

The Clark Fork around superior will come back to be an even more fantastic fishery than before. Hell of a stretch of water.

[plugboots]

This sounds good. I fished the Clark Fork a couple times every summer because work took me there, and it was my favorite river till the dam was removed. I know it is going to be better in the long run especially for the Bull trout. I fished it a few weeks ago just downstream from Missoula, and it still has a couple summers to be back to where it was. Soon.