Jump to navigation. But then I drove north, to the far reaches of northwest Montana, just shy of the British Columbia border, to the Kootenai River that flows from the depths of Lake Koocanusa. And from there, downstream for hundreds of miles, the Kootenai flows through some of the most scenic and awe-inspiring landscapes in the Northwest.
Once it leaves the lake it flows west through the tall fir and spruce country of northwest Montana, into northern Idaho and then back into BC and Kootenay Lake. From there, it flows through Castlegar, B. The stretch between the Libby Dam and the Idaho border is most definitely trout water. The Kootenai, in this reach, is on a mission. It leaves the dam, and is immediately joined by the Fisher River. And then it just … flows.
Instinctively, I kept pounding the banks with a dry-dropper rig, and every time, either Tim or Sean would offer some gentle criticism.
Drag and drop. Bring it back 10 feet. Once in a while, my dropper, a size 14 Perdigon, would get hung up in the riverside rocks. And yet, my instincts kept pushing me to cast tight to the bank. Like I would on the South Fork. But not on the Kootenai. Instead, it often results in another dive into the fly box for another Perdigon. The good news? There was no need to lift the fly and recast — I was simply instructed to come tight to the fly and drag the rig out off the bank into the real money zone.
And these big rocks … they could be anywhere, from 10 feet off the bank to the middle of the river. And, after a fashion, I could start to see them — I could identify the color changes in the river from light green to dark green, and I could put flies on that ridge. As I said, the Kootenai runs fast.
