By Pat Straub for Explore Big Sky
2016 is done. Está terminando. It was an interesting year on many fronts—and thankfully we are not going to revisit it anymore. It’s time to move on. And … go fishing. So I did just that on the first day of 2017.
My destination was the Gallatin River north of Big Sky, and it did not disappoint. Can I remind you how lucky we are to have this trout stream in our backyard? Can I remind you how vital it is we work to protect it, especially after 2016’s elections?
Dang. I promised to move on. Please just don’t get lazy in 2017, in fact get empowered. You can start by agreeing to take action in 2017—and that’s one of the New Year’s fly fishing resolutions. Here’s the list I came up in between fish on New Year’s Day.
Are the Seychelles on your list? Photo by A. Derr
Get involved now for the future. Whether it’s ensuring public access, protecting public lands, educating fellow anglers that climate change is real, or just picking up someone else’s trash on the river, the things that make living here special will not protect themselves.
Support your local fly shop before it is gone…
Catch a native trout on the fly. Put some thought into this and it’s not as easy as you think. In our immediate area our native trout are Westslope and Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Head a few hours west and you can add bull trout to the mix. Venture to the west coast and your odds increase with steelhead trout and sea-run cutthroat trout. Westslope and Yellowstone cutthroat are your best bet, but in order to do that you may have to fish more. Thankfully fishing more is on the list.
