Smith River Float, Montana

The Smith River is located in central Montana, and is a Tributary of the Missouri River.  It flows Northwest between the Big Belt and Little Belt mountains. The float is 59 miles and is only accessible via a lottery of permits each spring. It is a Class I river and has a Blue Ribbon trout ranking.

The float begins in White Springs, MT at Camp Baker.  It is a 4 night trip averaging 15 miles/day.



The flow when we put in was a bit high, but dropped to the optimum upper 500's during the float.  However, the water was off-color and visibility was limited to  8" or so which slowed fishing.

Loading the rafts at Camp Baker

The float consisted of Kevin McCafferty, Brandon McCafferty and myself.  We had a larger three-person raft and a small one person raft called a river master.

Author with the raft

The first day was a short float to Indian Springs, Mile 6. We fished a few spots among the way and landed a few fish. 

Taking down camp at Indian Springs

Arsenal of rods

We primaraly fished worms with a nymph trailer or a double streamer combo.  As expected, the larger fish were taken on the streamers.

My streamer box

Worm-nymph combo

After the first night, Brandon and I took the 'river master' across the river and fished where Indian Spring feeds into the Smith.  I caught a 17" brown on a streamer after only a few casts.

17" Brown

Kevin and the 19" Brown

       

Shortly after I caught my fish, Kevin joined us and landed a 19" brown after a long battle.


We filled up our water containers with fresh spring water at Indian Springs and then headed onwards to Sunset Cliff.

Filling our water jugs at Indian Springs

We had 17.6 miles to float for the day, which meant minimal stopping to fish along the way.  We had some showers throughout the day, but managed to arrive at camp as the sun was setting that evening.  The rain stopped just as we set up camp allowing us to have a nice dinner and catch a glimpse of a rainbow at Sunset Cliff.

The mist made for some great cliff shots

Brandon mans the watermaster

                                 

                Stopped for lunch

Sunset cliff was named after its orange hue, resembling a setting sun

 

The rainbow at sunset cliff that evening

Stonefly against sunset cliff

The next morning, all clouds had cleared and we only had 11.8 miles to float, meaning we got to stop quite a bit more to fish.

I manned the watermaster for most of the float on this day and managed to get some pictures of the different waterfowl that make the canyon their home.

Merganser taking off

Brandon & Kevin

When we stopped for lunch, I noticed a couple things.  There was a hatch of March Brown duns taking place and that there were fossils in many of the rocks on the shores

March Brown Dun

The dun is the first molt from the larval stage.  After the short period as a dun, the fly will molt again and become a spinner.  You can tell this fly is a dun by its darkly colored wings.

Most of the fossils that were found were of shells

We also encountered the Ranchman's Tiger Moth (Platyprepia virginalis) when stopping to gather driftwood for the fire

That night we fished from Fraunhoffer, our campsite, as Kevin set up camp (thank you Kevin!).

I managed to catch 3 Mountain Whitefish (a native species) in-a-row without hooking into a single trout

Picturesque latrine at Fraunhoffer

View of camp from cave

At Fraunhoffer camp, mile 35.4, we had great fishing but less than ideal weather.  We got a decent amount of rain that night and didn't even get a chance to get a fire going.  We ate smoked oysters and drank Yukon Jack under the tarp.

Staying dry

 

The next morning was clear and we cooked some trout for breakfast.  We had some time in the morning to fish and explore the area, so I hiked up to a cave across the river from camp and found some fossils and snapped some photos.

Breakfast

 

 

Brandon and me at lunch

On the way to our final camp site, Black Butte, we stopped to hike to a cave we had heard about that was said to have pictographs.  We had some lunch and a couple beers and began our hike.  After a while we realized we should have reached the cave as the trail tapered off and our hiking became more treacherous.  After hiking a few miles in the wrong direction, we hiked back to the start of the trail and realized we took a wrong turn right off-the-bat.  We hiked to the REAL cave and found the pictographs as promised.

View of the Smith from near the cave

The cave had many pictographs and we were able to decipher a few, including: people, a sun, a bear and birds.

Animal (bear?) pictograph

That night at Black Butte, mile 44.8, we feasted on Elk steaks thanks to Kevin and his skills with a bow.

Elk Steak

As we loaded up the rafts the next morn, Brandon managed to land another nice brown right at camp.

Author manning the BIG raft

On our last day, we left the canyon and entered pastoral fields where we were greeted by cattle and sheep.  We floated 14.1 miles to the take-out at Eden Bridge (mile 58.9).

I managed 2 more nice browns that day before reaching take-out.  Streamers were the hot item and the bigger the better.

Big streamer

We reached Eden bridge around 5pm (much earlier than expected) and packed up our gear and headed home.  We were exhausted.


 Our float on the Smith was over and it had been a great one.

The crew at take-out

The next day we packed the raft up again and floated the Missouri River in Cascade. Brandon managed to catch rainbow after rainbow.  I didn't catch any fish until that evening.  By swinging caddis pupa at sunset we managed to pull in a rainbow seemingly with every cast.

  

 Brandon and his big bow

Author and 15' bow

END