Well unfortunately, due to the pandemic rescheduling Nascar’s season we won’t be going on our annual vacation to Montana this year. Now I’m still hopeful I can sneak off for a quick work trip! So in honor of our favorite place to visit I’m sharing our vacation from last year! Probably our favorite place ot visit now is The Bitterroot Valley for so many reasons, maybe we will be lucky enough to call this valley home someday!

We did a lot of fly fishing this trip so be prepared for all of those photos, some are phone shots mixed with my usual camera shots!

 

The Bitterroot Valley is situated between the Bitterroot Mountain & Sapphire Mountain ranges, it’s a little piece of paradise!

 

We flew into Missoula stopped for a quick lunch as were anxious to get to our cabin and relax! Of course we went fishing almost as soon as we arrived. The owner of our cabin (below) were the absolute nicest and even had a bird dog of their own, almost felt like Sadie was with us. We also met their neighbors who happen to be fly fishing royalty in Montana. They were so kind and gracious to us, we felt like family & so welcomed. John spent so much time with Seth talking about fly tying & more. He actually was an advisor to the movie “A River Runs Through it” he built the mechanical fish in the famous Brad Pitt scene, it was cool to see the props from the movie. We were hoping to visit him again this year, but unfortunately he has since passed, we were so very lucky to have met him & will forever remember our time spent with him & his wife, the coffee we shared, huckleberry jam and much more! I’ll treasure the flies he made us!

 

 

 

The first night here & Seth is already catching fish! I’m not gonna lie catching wild trout is much more difficult than I anticpated!

“The man who coined the term ‘money can’t buy happiness’, never bought himself a good fly rod”

The next day we headed out early to the West Fork of the Bitterroot River nothing like a moose running out in front of you to wake you up!

Early morning fishing on the West Fork! Feels like you are out in the wilderness, just forest surrounding you!

Caught my first wild trout & my 2nd on this river! Was a great morning!

This barn isn’t too far from the Chief Joseph Ranch ( from Yellowstone/Dutton Tv fame) The sun hitting it in the moring with Trapper’s Peak to to the left! As you all know I love old barns, barns with a great story & scenery. These mountains in the Bitterroot are also quite stunning I can’t wait to go back and do some more hiking in them!

“Three-fourths of the Earth’s surface is water & one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn”

 

The famous Chief Joseph Ranch from the Yellowstone TV Show, they weren’t filming when we were there which is unfortunate I was hoping to run into Kevin Costner 🙂 What a beautiful ranch! We were hoping to stay there this year, maybe next year!

I headed out to the Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge to take photos and it didn’t disappoint!

Makes my heart happy seeing so many cattle!

Part 2 coming next week!