Destinations: Montana

0:00This is Daniel Galhardo and you're listening to the Tenkara Cast, a podcast about the simple Japanese method of fly-fishing, Tenkara. In the Tenkara Cast we'll be sharing information on techniques, history, philosophy, and Tenkara stories from anglers all over the world. This podcast is brought to you by Tenkara USA, introducing Tenkara outside of Japan since 2009. It's only possible we create content such as this podcast and videos because of your support. So we thank you so very much for purchasing Tenkara USA rods, lines, and flies. I hope you enjoy learning more about the simple method of fly fishing. Hey, Tenkara Cast listeners. It's good to be back here with you. Today I've got with me John Gere, one of the staff here at Tenkara USA. and what I thought would be fun would be to get into a conversation about different destinations for Tenkara and kind of have that be a part of the Tenkara Cast. As you might have noticed, I've been out of releasing new episodes for a couple of weeks and part of that has been just a lot of projects that we're doing here. Part of it, you know, trying to figure out exactly what to bring to our listeners.

1:22But today I'm going to talk to John Gere about Tenkara fishing in Montana. And hopefully John will kind of help give us a little light on where to find Tenkara Perfect Waters in his home state or his current home state. And, you know, we'll kind of cover other destinations from there. So, John, are you there with me? I am. Well, thanks so much for making a little time today to talk about something that I'm sure you don't like talking about, which is fishing in Montana. Right. But, you know, I think even though a lot of times, like, you know, listeners might think that, oh, yeah, everybody talks about Montana being great fly fishing and everybody knows Montana. I mean, that's a name that, you know, we tend to equate to fishing. Maybe we don't know enough about it. Maybe there's some stuff that is overlooked in terms of Tenkara. Maybe people think that Tenkara is not good for the state of Montana.

2:23So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that and kind of see what your thoughts are. But why don't we start talking about where do you live right now, John? I live in Belgrade, Montana, which is just outside of Bozeman. And you're a transplant to Montana. how long have you been living there now i moved here in october of 2002 so i think it's like like 12 and a half years at this point something like that so and maybe you can tell us a little bit about your story first of all and just to kind of give people a sense because we haven't really talked for the podcast but why don't you tell us what took you to montana and your fishing experience there in general uh well like a lot of people i had taken some fishing vacations up here um i was working in a flying tackle shop in denver at the time and uh back in in 2002 there was a big fire in colorado called the hayman fire and i i had been i was going to start guiding i wanted to start guiding and um i'd even bought a new car for that stuff like that and and uh the hayman fire kind of wiped out a lot of the stuff that that i wanted to to guide And I kind of decided that it was time to move up here.

3:40I didn't really have a good reason to stay in Colorado, although a lot of those fisheries have since recovered greatly. But just decided to go for it and move to Montana and been taking most of my vacations up here. And so I did and took a job delivering furniture just so I could move up here. And I've been here ever since. So that's kind of the Montana end of the story. I mean, that's kind of basically what happened. But you also lived to be a little bit of a trout bum for a while, work at a fly shop. I mean, what about that part of the story since you moved to Montana? What have you been doing there? Yeah, so I mean, I fish a lot. I mean, even before I started working in shops again, I fished a lot. But I mean, the years I kept record, it was – or kept journals, it was like over 100 days a year, which is kind of a lot here because we don't have a super long season because of our winters. But I did – oh, probably – I'm trying to remember what year you and I actually met, but probably four years before that, something like that.

4:46I decided to go back to college, which that didn't – I didn't finish. But anyway, I started working at a fly shop again because that was a good job to do while I was going back to school. And so I got a job at Fins and Feathers Fly Shop, and I had friends that worked there and had been friends with that shop for a long time and still am. And, yeah, just the normal trout bum thing. I mean, I was going to school for a while, but, you know, I worked in a shop, which is a great – I mean, if you want to learn about fishing and you want to learn about fishing in a specific region, you couldn't ask for a better place to be than a fly shop. Because I got to talk to all the guides coming through, all my customers. I mean, we had a lot of, and they still do have a lot of customers that are very good anglers and very, you know, knowledgeable people and know what's going on there and kind of put you really in the loop and stuff and just a great experience. As was working at a shop in Colorado, too. I mean, I worked with a really great group of guys there and learned a ton, too. So it's definitely, it's not anything you're going to get rich doing, but it is a lot of fun. Yeah, and so let's also give our listeners a little bit of a sense of your Tenkara experience because, you know, this is a Tenkara podcast.

5:54And I think one of the things that I want to get at, you know, in this episode is, you know, how beautiful, you know, Tenkara is for the state of Montana. So tell us a little bit about your Tenkara experience and then, you know, maybe how you fish with Tenkara there in Montana. Sure. um i i fish um i fish a lot with it i mean it's it's it's i i still do both but tenkara is easily 90 percent of my fishing if not more now which i first saw tenkara i thought it looked awesome i thought it looked really cool like the aesthetics of it but i wasn't sure how appropriate it would be in montana because we're kind of known for big waters and big fish and that sort of thing and and uh and i eventually got a rod um and and uh started fishing it and was just kind of shocked at how much I could do with it. And there's probably going to be things that I don't think it's super appropriate, but, but, uh, um, man, I, I mean, I fish it, like I said, I mean, 90% of the time at least, um, and, and, uh, on a lot of different waters. And, and for me, I mean, I think that the, the thing that, that, uh, defines my Tenkara the most, I guess, uh, would be the Gallatin river, which is my home river. And it's relatively large, uh, by Tenkara standards. I mean, it's, it's a big Western freestone and, uh, but man, I just can't imagine a better way to fish it than Tenkara. The line control you get in approaching the pocket water and stuff, it's just fantastic and really fun way to fish. And I've been surprised, I think one of the, like a lot of people, I think one of the big surprises I had about Tenkara was how large a fish you could comfortably handle with it. And I haven't found that to be a big issue on most fisheries. I mean, obviously, if you're fishing like a trophy trout pond or something, maybe not so much, but most of the river fish I caught I've been able to handle just fine.

7:41So the Gallatin is one of your probably favorite rivers, and you and I have fished there quite a few times before. I mean, as you mentioned, it is a big river, and you already had a lot of Tenkara experience in, you know, by 2011, which is when I brought Dr. Ishigaki to fish over there. I think it was 2011, right? It's 2010 or 11, I'm not sure. Yeah, we did the very first Tenkara Summit, and I brought Dr. Ishigaki to fish there and invited you. You're not working with me yet at the point, but we knew each other, so I invited you to join us and fish some of the waters. Now, a couple of times, like after that, you've mentioned that, you know, you saw certain things when Dr. Ishigaki and I came to fish there that you didn't quite realize, you know, you could have done with Tenkara or would have done. Do you, I don't know if you remember that or if you remember what those are.

8:41I do, yeah, pretty clearly. But, you know, just to kind of give listeners a little bit of a sense of, you know, Tenkara is actually appropriate for these bigger waters as well. Do you want to describe what that experience was like? Yeah, I think the big thing for me is when I first started fishing tenkara on big water, which I did fish big water and fished it pretty effectively right away with tenkara. That didn't take long for me to figure that would work. But I didn't realize what was possible, especially with long lines. And there's one instance in particular where the group of us were fishing. And I'm used to fishing alone or with one other person maybe. And I cover water pretty quick. And I wouldn't stay a long time in one place. We were in one place with a big group. I thought we had kind of done all the possibilities as far as what we could do. And you and Dr. Ishigaki, and I can't remember who put it on first, but either you or Dr. Ishigaki put on a pretty long line. I'm not sure how long in hindsight. I would guess like over 20 feet, maybe like a 24-foot line. And started fishing the far bank and getting eats off of that.

9:42I can't remember. I think Dr. Ishigaki got one. Maybe you got one. but you were fishing the far side of the river across this like ripping current that that uh i would never even dream to try and fish across because you didn't have to worry about i mean you just held the rod up high and and kept the line off the water and and and uh um so that was one of the big ones um just kind of learning how effective long line tin car could be and how it could kind of open up possibilities for you even if it wasn't like a primary tactic um the other thing was seeing at that point I was pretty much only fishing uh western flies with my tenkara rod like I was a total like I guess you'd call hybrid angle where I fished my tenkara rod with elk hair caddis and stuff like that and bead heads I mean I had done a little bit of I guess what you'd call like European or Czech nymphing with the tenkara rods and and uh um I saw you guys catch a lot of fish on just you know standards of cost of flies and uh even in water where I didn't necessarily think that that would uh that would work especially using like kind of varied techniques you know like i was basically just dead drifting flies so it was the first time i got to see flies pulsed and stuff like that and see how how that could really be a game changer too so yeah and i think that's kind of a you know something that a lot of our listeners probably go through you know they might be the hybrid anglers but sometimes you know people might think that there's too many limitations and that kind of thing.

11:05And I think your experience is probably very common among a lot of our listeners. Now, you know, after that, of course, you've been fishing pretty much all over the state of Montana. And I think one of the things, and you and I actually have fished in a couple of different parts of the state as well, just on my different visits over there. But I think one of the things that I'd love to kind of do is give people a little bit of an idea how to break up the state of Montana. Maybe like there is certain regions where you find, you know, like different kinds of rivers and the most prominent rivers. For example, like, you know, we can talk about the very far western part of Montana and then come kind of towards the east, you know, towards where you are and a little farther east. is there a way that you can think of breaking the state of montana into logical pieces well it's tough because there's a lot of good fishing throughout the state and there's a lot of good car fishing we're still pretty western i mean bozeman is still um you know eastern montana like most montanans would think of that as like uh you know billings and and that where it's kind of still plains um we're still in the mountains and and then uh so i i mean i think of our area is sort of southwestern montana um and then if you go over the pass and get over in the missoula area which also has a lot of really really good water um that's more just western montana um and then the northwestern part of the state like getting up to glacier national park and that they've got some really perfect tenkara water that i haven't really uh i haven't really checked it out at all so so i mean there's there's a lot of good stuff it's um but but there's definitely like front or there's a western slope and eastern slope and and you know you'll even see cutthroat designated that way um so that's that's one way to think of it for sure but there's definitely some crossover i mean it doesn't take me that long to get to like rock creek which is more in the western slope and um and you'll catch western slope cutthroat because they've stocked them in different places so so let's let's kind of uh kind of go back here a little bit i i'm just trying to paint a picture you know in the listeners minds because we all know montana has tremendous fishing and it's got a lot of fishing and the entire state has a lot of fishing um right now i think what i want to try to get to is like you know if we were trying to kind of just describe the state maybe we start on the eastern part you know like where you know where you mentioned like uh you know Billings might be, you know, and Billings is almost like, you know, in the middle.

13:44It's not super far east. But can we kind of walk through, maybe we can start in Billings, you know, let's call that kind of eastern Montana. What do we find there in terms of Tenkara water specifically? And what are the big rivers that we can find there? Right. So the big water is closer to Billings, which is more east. There's the Bighorn, which is very famous. and it's kind of a big flat tailwater it's not necessarily what i think as a tank car river but it can be done my boss's fish tank car rods there especially in the winter time and bighorn is a if you can stand the temperatures is a really great winter fishery and then you also have the lower yellowstone and and that's not a region i fished a ton it's kind of got a mix up of fish there's warm water fish there's trout there's carp so there's definitely stuff you could do with the tenkara water there and then there's a lot of smaller streams um which you know i don't i mean i don't know a lot of them by name because they're not the big famous fisheries but a lot of times you find tributaries of those famous rivers and they may be a bit more comfortable for a tenkara angler who's kind of used to smaller water definitely now if we drive how far do we have to drive west to hit bozeman i think bozeman's like two two and a half hours from billing something like that i could be a little off on that okay and uh and i remember i think uh when i was one of the last times that i was there did we fish somewhere near livingstone which is kind of like close to bozeman well that's um yeah that's like well you're you're you're um you know you're you're on the yellowstone and livingston i mean that's the the yellowstone river runs right through town and that's what makes livingston such a trout town too so um but uh and then there's a lot of tributaries to the Yellowstone as well and some of those can be good Tenkara waters some stretches the Yellowstone are great Tenkara waters even though it's a great big river some of the canyon stretches are actually really good so yeah and Livingston is really not that far from Bozeman but I remember that because we yeah we found some really kind of nice it might have been private water where we were but I would imagine people can find some Spring Creek kind of water right yeah I don't think you fished that with me but I remember you'd fish one of the the spring creeks it's right outside of livingston i think it may have been uh uh nelson's was it nelson's that you did rings a bell it's been a little while now but uh yeah i and and i fished uh depuse and armstrong's both with tenkara or i think i've done arms i know i've done depuse with tenkara because i i kind of thought maybe i was the first guy to do that but i doubt it i think i've talked to a couple people since it may have beat me to it but uh well you know in the spring creeks too actually there's a there's it's amazing how many spring creeks there are in montana like you know it's not all free stone kind of like you know big rivers um right that's very true quite a few and sometimes people think that you know uh spring creeks are very challenging and tenkara is not usable there because you cannot cast far enough but what are what are your thoughts some fishing spring creeks in montana uh it works great i mean i mean i i've done real well fishing spring creeks um both i mean i've caught fish on cicasa flies and stuff like that um certainly if you want to use hybrid tactics that works great too um but but uh yeah i mean i mean they're not um i mean the spring creeks especially are not usually that huge so casting distance is not that big of an issue and if you're comfortable with a long rod and a long line i mean you actually have a pretty fair casting different distance and spring creeks don't have the pocket water that we associate with tinquara sometimes but they even though they don't have all the rocks they do have a lot of conflicting currents and and sometimes tinquara can help you beat conflicting currents on a flat water just like it can in a pocket water environment so um it can be very helpful in spring creek very true very true so you know and we go a little bit west of livingston of course we have bozeman which we talked about you have you know the gallatin river um right you know there's also like some good little streams too that we can find there right no they're they're we uh we don't have to get into the very uh detailed names of creeks and that kind of thing because they get a lot of pressure i'm sure well but honestly i mean it's true i mean when you see tributaries of the famous rivers.

18:09And I can't think of too many of the famous rivers I know of that are an exception to this, but they're going to have a tributary or two that's going to be a good tenkara stream. And yeah, it's hard for me to name any of those by name, but that's something to look out for, especially if you enjoy that kind of water. And it's pretty easy to find out information on those. I mean, there's a lot of good guidebooks out there for Montana. There's a lot of information on the internet. So, and one of the things that's kind of fun about those small streams is you don't need to know a lot about them other than their general size character and not to enjoy them. You don't have to have hatch charts or, you know, anything like that. Like, they kind of all fish similarly and they're a lot of fun. And then, like, of course, if we go a little bit south of Bozeman, it's kind of amazing. like there's a couple of different ways to go you know south but um you can go through ennis or through big sky and both of them i think you're following creeks and rivers uh right if you go through big sky you're following the gout and if you go through ennis you're going to end up following the madison yeah and then you hit the uh you know of course uh west yellow the town of west yellowstone in yellowstone park uh which then we can have another episode just to talk about that area for sure right um and when we go a little bit west of bozeman um what else do you hit that you like to fish well i mean you you don't get too terribly far um it's about the same distance going the other way as like billings is but uh rock creek is actually a really great tenkara stream it's a little closer to missoula um and uh man that's that's another one of those it's not quite as big as the gallatin but it's it's another one of those nice size rivers it's not like a a small stream per se um well it's not a small stream at all but but really good pocket water great tenkara fishery um it's it's definitely one of my i don't get to fish it that much but um it's one of my favorites so and it has some tributaries that fish really well with tenkara as well so and then it keep on going a little further west and uh we hit missoula right and there's some a lot of people know the name missoula because it's been featured in a lot of fishing um destinations and isn't the isn't missoula like where the river runs through it took place it is right right that's where it was set that was the town that they were from so yeah um and then like the blackfoot river is where a lot of the the stuff was shot and and the blackfoot has some really again i mean it's a big river but it's got some cool pocket water that's really fun to do with tenkara and and uh they have the bitter root river and the clarks fork river there as well they have the which are all all good fisheries in their own right so and since i mentioned the river runs through it which i know for you know for myself it was kind of like you know one of the early videos that kind of really got me interested in fly fishing even though i had been fly fishing long before i actually watched it but it was like one of those videos that a lot of people you know really like um i had this thought in my head the other day like next time you watch a river runs through it just imagine having a tenkara rod in your hand because there's a lot of these waters that it's like all these currents and you could get such beautiful drifts and there's the one scene where uh you know one of the guys one of the brothers is having a hard time catching fish but the other one is hooking fish after fish and i'm just thinking it's like man if he just had a better drag you know or a better better drift you catch some good fish well i i've seen tenkara go that way um i mean i've you know it it it uh there's certain areas that are you know much more easily fished with the tenkara and and and i mean so the the river most of the fishing footage on that movie is shot on the gallop and they say it's the blackfoot but it's actually all shot on the gallop and just for logistical reasons i guess is what i heard but so some of the the stuff on the movie is really recognizable to me it's it's you know water i've fished before or certainly seen before so and uh and now like you know missoula of course getting pretty far west in the state um but there's a lot of stuff i mean of course there's a lot of really good water south of missoula uh it kind of follows the the bitter route is in that area right yeah the bitter route goes through there and you know the um the bitter itself can be good it's it's a real wide flat river and well closer to it's pretty wide closer to uh missou as you get closer to hamilton it gets a little narrower um and and it it can be good uh for well it's a great river period but it can be a good tenkara river and again i mean some of its tributaries are perfect so and what about north of there i know you mentioned glacier national park a little bit earlier um what do we find in terms of good tenkara fishing north of missoula you think you know that's the part of the state that I'm least familiar with.

23:06I know that the Flathead has stuff that's really good. And then again, like I said, Glacier National Park itself has some water that's, I mean, classic tenkara water. It's exactly the kind of creeks that tenkara evolved on. And I just haven't been up there to fish that much at all. But there's definitely, I keep wanting to do a tenkara trip. I have a friend that moved up there and I keep meaning to go see him and fish that area. And I just still have, there's too much to fish close to home. I don't travel as much as I used to. Yeah, I think neither of us do. But I think that's kind of what I wanted to do. Just kind of get this overview of, you know, the state from a Tenkara angler's point of view too. Because, you know, we can find more articles than we care to read. I think, you know, if we look up Montana fly fishing, we'll find a lot of information for sure. But, yeah, and, you know, I was just kind of thinking, too, when I first did the episodes about destinations, I talked about with Vito in Italy.

24:12And, you know, and then I talked about Japan. And in those episodes, I talked about, you know, a little bit about foods and things to see and do when you're traveling to those areas. What should somebody order for food when you come to Montana? Steak. I think that that's probably if there's something that we do really well here at the Biggs. I mean, not that there's not some good strontes of other kinds in Montana, but, I mean, if you can find a good local steakhouse, they're almost always really good here. Yeah, that's kind of a loaded question. I got steak in my mind today. I think I've been craving a steak all day today. So that's why Montana's in my head, I think. Oh, could be. I'm trying to cut back on the red meat, but it sounds really good right now. Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, great, John. I'm glad we chatted a little bit about fishing in Montana. For our listeners, I'm going to try to do a little bit more of these episodes about destinations where you can take your Tenkara rod with you, maybe places that you don't think of as fishing with Tenkara.

25:19Hopefully this is a good format. And, you know, if there's any follow-up questions that anybody has, feel free to email us info at Tenkara USA or share on our Facebook page, facebook.com forward slash Tenkara USA. And of course, you can always find us at Tenkara USA dot com. If you have questions about Montana or future destinations that you'd like to have covered, please let me know and I'll try my best to share those with you. But John, thanks so much for sitting with me and talking about Montana. You're welcome. All right, until next time on the Tenkara Cast, everyone.