One Man's Trash, is Another Man's Treasure
I've been spending a lot of time on the lower portion of the Missouri lately. If you aren't too familiar with the Might Mo, she's pretty well known as a blue ribbon fishery, but only a very small portion is known as the crown jewel. The rest of the Mo is pretty slow moving and susceptible to agricultural use. I don't know what the native fisheries were like prior to all the dams, but what I do know is that things change drastically after the last dam before Fort Peck. The terrain goes from a pristine mountain cool above Cascade to arid grasslands below Great Falls. Much to my surprise, the steep valleys of what is the beginning of the Missouri Breaks, is a tough place to grow up' filled with prickly pear, thorny bushes, sharp rocks, deer, rabbits and snakes, lots of snakes.
The land below Rainbow Dam is so rugged, not much of it has ever been included as part of private landholders. It is simply too rough for grazing or farming. About the only entity that values this narrow corridor of rough terrain along the Mo is PPL, which is a large stakeholder in hydroelectric energy in the Electric City. These narrow corridors of open space have made it a virtual highway for transmission lines for a far as one can see. PPL has been a very gracious and responsible landowner, opening most of their property to the public and maintaining it to the most natural state as possible. Conservation of native plants, land and animals is important to them, so much that a large portion of their land is operated by Fish, Wildlife and Parks to help manage conservation and public access of their land.
There are no two organizations better at what they each do with such a positive impact to those who admire public land access, as I do. Once you understand your rights as a Montana conservation license holder and can follow the rules of the landowner, you quickly gain access to thousands of acres of land. And, because of Montana's sacred stream laws, most of this entire section of the Mighty Mo is free to fish as long as it can be accessed through public land.
Therein lies the problem, or perhaps the advantage. Most of these public accesses are tucked in very close to the rough terrain of the breaks and beyond the comfort level of 80% of the population. Pointy prickly pear and yucca plants don't necessarily make it a walk in the park, either. What is left is quickly discouraged by the large amount of snakes.
As it is, I found myself pondering over my two-year spey casting adventure. Knowing what I know about spey casting, swinging flies and the lower Missouri, I asked myself' would it be possible for one to catch a pike, a bass, a goldeye, and a carp on a spey rod, in what has become known as the ''trash waters of the Mo?"
We spend an awful lot of time talking about spey casting, which I think I've got down. But we never really talked a whole lot about spey hook setting, which I have found to be incredibly challenging and the main reason I've yet to land a fish on a spey rod, be it a beautiful blue ribbon trout or ''trash fish." At this point I don't really care. I just want to land a fish. After all, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Plus I seem to remember feeling a certain something the first time I caught something other than a trout on a single hander. Surely the feeling is rejuvenated once again on a spey rod, and perhaps amplified proportionally by the size of the rod.
After taking a few practice cast with just a leader, it was time to ammo up and do the real deal. I figured these fish don't really see a whole lot of streamers, so pretty much anything would work and it was go time. Two casts into it and I'm getting a good feel of the water and pretty much know how I want to work my swing. I've been skunked enough times to know where in my swing the action is going to happen, if it happens. BAM. Not a rock. Set, set, set!
Damn, missed him. Got to work on that set. Same place, same thing. Let's go, cast it out. Here it comes, here it comes. BAM! There it is again. Set, set, set, gently, gently, not with the rod. Holy crap I got him! Thank God I brought a camera to get my first spey rod landed fish a goldeye! One species down, three more to go on a spey.
 "It's going to be a good summer!"