Montana Archives - The Drake Magazine

Photo by Corey Kruitbosch

Public Mistrust Doctrine

Conservation, Daily Drake, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2021, Freshwater Fly Fishing, Homepage Content, Policy/Politics/Laws, Stream Access, U.S. placesBy Tom Bie March 29, 2022 Leave a comment

“The topic of stream access illustrates one of the most perplexing types of legal conflicts that can arise… Indeed, it is difficult to find a legal issue that is more tangled and uncertain.” —A Wildlife Primer (2009), by Eric Freyfogle and Dale Goble

Colorado’s river laws might be in trouble. Roger Hill, the octogenarian trying to fulfill his dream of legally wade-fishing the Arkansas River, was at the Colorado Court of Appeals on January 27 and got good news about his case—Hill v Warsewa.

Jacklin's Fly Shop in March 2021. Photo by Beau Davis

Jacklin’s Fly Shop-Since 1974

Daily Drake, Flyshop Friday, Homepage Content, Lodges, Outfitters, and Guides, U.S. placesBy Beau Davis April 23, 2021 1 Comment

“Look at that baby!” Bob Jacklin exclaims as the foamy waters of Montana’s Madison River churn steadily around him. Elegantly draped out of the net he’s holding is the tail of a now-famous 30-inch brown trout—a fish that Jacklin had caught before. “You talk about a fish—that is a big boy!”

Photo: Bryan Gregson

Ambushed. Another Bear Attack in Montana

Daily Drake, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2020, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Summer 2020, Fly Fishing News, Lifestyle, Trout, U.S. placesBy Steven Hawley August 17, 2020 2 Comments

When Matthew Churchman woke up on a recent Sunday morning, at first the only thing growling was his stomach. Coffee and a cold breakfast took care of that. Camp, nestled in a 300-yard-long, cottonwood-and-willow stretch of river bottom, was in the process of being broken down. Skies…

Salmonfly Backup Plans

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2012, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Summer 2012, Flies, Hatches and Bugs, Throwback ThursdayBy Mixed Bag May 28, 2020 Leave a comment

If the big bugs don’t show, what’s option B? South Fork of the Snake Southeast Idaho Pale Morning Duns are a prolific hatch all summer on the South Fork, and often all day long. In fact, not having PMD patterns in your fly box for a day on this river is like showing up in…

Madison River Update

Daily Drake, Fly Fishing NewsBy Tom Bie November 14, 2019 Leave a comment

The latest chapter in the Madison River regulations debate unfolded at a Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting held in Helena on Tuesday night. Drake contributor Michael Wright gives an update in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

Drake contributor Michael Wright gives an update in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Here you can read our brief synopsis on the topic, from the Summer issue

PHOTO BY JOHN WOLSTENHOLME

Burnin’ for You – Rye and Rods

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Fall 2019, Lifestyle, The Put InBy Tom Bie October 10, 2019 Leave a comment

Thomas & Thomas finds a friend in the whiskey business Like many Westerners, I grew up without ever giving much thought to bamboo fly rods or rye whiskey. These things were viewed—like icy ski slopes or Steelers fans—as products of the Northeast, and thus of little concern to us Left Coasters. In college I started…

Madison Blues

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Summer 2019, Policy/Politics/Laws, The Put InBy Tom Bie July 2, 2019 10 Comments

A winter of discontent in Ennis If your summer plans include a tailwater weekend along Montana’s Madison River, you won’t be alone. In early April 2018, after years of surveys, public meetings, and citizen advisory committees, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) released its draft Recreational Management Plan for the Madison, which included some alarming…

Tailwater Salvation

Conservation, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Spring 2019, Lifestyle, The Put In, U.S. placesBy Tom Bie April 3, 2019 Leave a comment

The West may experience a lengthy runoff in 2019 While it’s always tricky making May or June runoff predictions in March, Snotel data from around the West indicates that snowpack levels, especially in Southern Colorado, Southern Utah, and parts of California’s Central Sierras, are poised in 2019 to create high flows or a long runoff…

A Star is Born

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Spring 2019, Humor, The Put In, Video/FilmBy Tom Bie April 3, 2019 3 Comments

Facing the Beast with Brian Grossenbacher If you’ve paid even the slightest attention to flyfishing media over the past two decades, then you’ve seen plenty of shots taken by Bozeman, Montana-based photographer Brian Grossenbacher. Whether shooting commercially for clients like Simms, Orvis, and Yeti, or editorially for this magazine and many others, Grossenbacher has made…

Fishing with Chewy

Destination travel, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Winter 2018, The Put InBy Paolo Marchesi January 7, 2019 1 Comment

My annual migrations from Montana to Baja started in the winter of 2009, when the mainstream media first began covering news about the dangers associated with Mexico travel. Friends and family thought I was nuts, but as long as you weren’t searching for blow in Tijuana at 2 a.m., Baja was still safer than many…

Slow Motion Masterpiece

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Fall 2018, Fly Fishing Art, Fly Fishing Industry, The Put In, Trout, U.S. places, Video/FilmBy Ryan Brod October 1, 2018 Leave a comment

The film opens with a ten-second zoom toward campfire flames that dance and swirl in the darkness. The viewer’s eyes are drawn to the underbelly of the largest log, crosshatched and ashen from the heat. Jump-cut to a small stream, lit by autumn light, shorelines framed by a blaze of fallen leaves. An angler appears,…

Yellowstoned – Paradise Valley Trouble

Conservation, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Winter 2017, Policy/Politics/LawsBy Jesse Lance Robbins January 27, 2018 Leave a comment

THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER’S pristine headwaters are tucked into some of the most remote land in the Lower 48, draining roughly 70,000 square miles across Wyoming and Montana. These wild waters serve as a stronghold for native Yellowstone cutthroat, and, combined with Yellowstone Lake, make up the largest inland population of cutthroat in the world.

Enduring Aspirations – Tom Morgan Rodsmiths

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Winter 2017, Fly Fishing Art, Fly Fishing IndustryBy Stephen Camelio January 2, 2018 3 Comments

Walk into the Bozeman offices of Tom Morgan Rodsmiths and an immaculate bamboo rod greets you. Natural yellow. Maroon wrappings. Agate guides. Fluid action. It’s stunning.

Unofficial Absaroka

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Winter 2017, Policy/Politics/Laws, Trout, U.S. placesBy Geoff Mueller December 13, 2017 Leave a comment

A week from now the creek at our boots will be too thin to float. Fueled by the dregs of a heavy winter snowpack atop Wyoming’s Bighorn Range, its window is on the verge of being shuttered. “Hard to say how it’ll fish,” Clark Smyth says from under the brim of an oversized straw hat.…

Junior’s Water

Conservation, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Fall 2017, Policy/Politics/LawsBy Monte Burke September 22, 2017 12 Comments

This was once one of my favorite spots in the Catskills. Paul and I used to fish it a lot before he moved to Montana. It’s a good place for Isonychias in the fall, and fishing a big dry in October in the East is something to be relished. I was last here more than…

Significant Tributaries

Conservation, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Fall 2017, Policy/Politics/LawsBy Patrick Hunter September 22, 2017 Leave a comment

The first places I explored as a kid, outside of my backyard, were the small creeks and wetlands near my home. They were full of tadpoles, salamanders, and, if we were lucky, turtles. I spent countless hours trying to fit various animals into Mason jars, but mostly I just covered myself in mud.

Yukon – Inconnu Lodge Flyfishing

Destination travel, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Summer 2017, Lodges, Outfitters, and Guides, TroutBy Tom Bie June 6, 2017 Leave a comment

Dan caught the only inconnu. Let’s get that out of the way. “Dan” is Dan Armstrong, a well-traveled, Bozeman-based photographer who occasionally gets invited on spectacular fishing trips with the tacit understanding that his job is to record the heroics of the writer and keep his hands off the rod. But it was our last…

Simms Launches “Save Our Streams” Initiative

Conservation, Fly Fishing Industry News, Policy/Politics/LawsBy Drake Magazine April 3, 2017 Leave a comment

Simms Fishing Products‘ new Save Our Streams (SOS) campaign detonates this month with a focus on Montana’s Yellowstone River, where two foreign-backed gold mining companies (Lucky Minerals and Crevice Mining Group) are busy eyeing dig sites along the watershed’s upper tributaries.

March Browns

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Spring 2017, Hatches and Bugs, Humor, Lifestyle, TroutBy Miles Nolte March 20, 2017 1 Comment

CHASING HATCHES IS STUPID and obnoxious. I know. I’ve tried. Pursuing particular insects insures that the potential for disappointment will dwarf the likelihood of success. If us fishing media folk are to be believed (also a bad idea), fishing is an appreciation of the moment, being present, or some other Baba Ram Das shit. Planning…

A Run of Luck

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Spring 2017, Humor, Lifestyle, TroutBy Chris Dombrowski March 20, 2017 3 Comments

Mid-June after a May-long drought and, weeks before we thought they would, the rivers had begun to “take shape,” an idiom I’ve always loved for its suggestions of primal formation and rebirth. What was just days prior a brown blob squirming primordially down from Rogers’ Pass is suddenly the jade-green Blackfoot, its boulders and riffly…

Simms Celebrates Veterans with WQW Wader

Fly Fishing Industry, Fly Fishing Industry News, LifestyleBy Drake Magazine November 11, 2016 Leave a comment

This month, Simms is again honoring our nation’s combat veterans by donating proceeds from sales of its WQW Limited Edition wader. Simms launched the special G3 Guide™ Wader last year to help benefit the Bozeman-based Warriors and Quiet Waters Foundation (WQW). WQW helps reintegrate post-9/11 combat veterans into society by building hope and resilience, facilitating camaraderie,…

The Adirondack Experience

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Fall 2016, Humor, LifestyleBy John Segesta September 26, 2016 10 Comments

A few years ago, I was sitting on the porch of a house I no longer live in, venting to a friend about “too much work, not enough fishing.” I told him I wanted to fish again, and said I knew just the guy to get me back on the water. The porch had great…

Bye, Bye, Brook Trout

Conservation, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Summer 2016, Humor, TroutBy Michael Wright June 29, 2016 1 Comment

NO ONE IS SURE where the brook trout found in Soda Butte Creek came from. Maybe a flood washed them over from a neighboring drainage. Maybe somebody in Cooke City had a bucket and a brookie fetish. Then again, the source doesn’t exactly matter. The fish are interlopers in one of Yellowstone National Park’s most…

I’ll Take a Half-Dozen Malpeques and a Cocktail

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Summer 2016, Humor, LifestyleBy Miles Nolte June 29, 2016 5 Comments

Upon learning of Jim Harrison’s death, reputedly hunched over his typewriter at work on a poem, I gather some of my favorite books and walk to a nearby bar. Perching on a stool by the window, I order a tequila cocktail and a half dozen Malpeque oysters. The oysters arrive, lascivious, nearly quivering in their…

Meet The Wader Makers

Fly Fishing Art, Fly Fishing Industry News, LifestyleBy Drake Magazine June 15, 2016 Leave a comment

Simms‘ new Wader Maker campaign tells the story of the people behind the pants: “The secret to Simms waders isn’t any one material or tool. It’s the love, passion and artistry put in to each and every cut, seam and stitch by the skilled and steady hands of the wader makers — Bozeman, Montana-based craftsmen…

Winston Acquires Bauer Fly Reels

Fly Fishing Art, Fly Fishing Industry, Fly Fishing Industry NewsBy Drake Magazine May 1, 2016 Leave a comment

Winston Rod Company in Twin Bridges, Montana, announced this week that it has acquired Bauer Premium Reel Company of Ashland, Oregon.

Let Them Eat Carp

Conservation, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Spring 2016, U.S. placesBy Steven Hawley March 25, 2016 3 Comments

When Malheur Wildlife Refuge militants in January made the decidedly un-Boy Scout move of announcing their lack of long-range plans by calling for snacks, perhaps they didn’t recognize the plethora of protein swimming just out their adopted back door: a millions-strong armada of carp, so many that their protruding backs can give off the illusion…

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