Fish & Fly Magazine
Montana Happy Hour
By Brian O’Keefe

My Dry-Fly Purist Grandfather Lived In Missoula in the 1960’s and  ‘70s. He was old school.  Fred Johnson and his cane rod, silk lines and wicker creel were a common sight on the uncrowded and rarely guided waters of the Blackfoot, Bitterroot, and Clark Fork Rivers.  I tagged along, learning from the master.  Fred did not see the advantage of fishing the Missouri, Big Hole, and Madison or Beaverhead.  And nobody had ever heard of the Big Horn.  Fred found all the rising trout he needed within an hour’s drive from his back door.  When I was old enough to drive, I busted out and discovered the rest of Montana.  In 1970 my Montana road-trip tradition was born. next >