Columbia Gorge News

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Fishing the Kootenai River

By Bill Schneider, Video by Gene Colling, 8-04-09

Tim Linehan showing us how to do it and relaxing after another good day on the river. Photos by Bill Schneider. Video by Gene Colling.

Anybody who likes fly fishing for trout has heard about Montana’s world-famous blue ribbon rivers--the Big Hole, Bighorn, Madison, Missouri, Yellowstone, and all the rest, but when you go there for a relaxing day on a classic trout stream, you not only face competition from the wily salmonids, but also competition from your brethren. On any summer day, you have to courteously share the river with dozens of drift boats and even more wade anglers.

Unless you’re on the fabulous Kootenai River in far northwestern Montana, that is.

I recently had a chance to verify this presumption by spending two fishy days flaying the waters of the Kootenai. On the first day, we saw one angler wade fishing, but otherwise, we had the river to ourselves--not even one other drift boat, and not one other angler the second day.

With the kind assistance of Travel Montana, I had the pleasure of spending a day on the river with Tim Linehan, who along with his wife Joanne runs Linehan Outfitting. Linehan has been guiding on the Kootenai since 1989 when he wandered into Kootenai Country. “Serendipitously,” he reminisces, “I found this place and immediately fell head over heels over it.”

The Kootenai is the third largest river in Montana (behind the Clark Fork and Yellowstone). “But it isn’t quite as prolific or have the growth rate as the Missouri and others,” Linehan explains. “Our fish tend to run about 12-14 inches, not 16-18.”

This is a tailwater fishery, like the Bighorn or Missouri, he adds. It puts out some nice caddis and PMD hatches, but in general, it doesn’t have as many aquatic insects as you see on the Big Hole, Missouri and others.

Even though Linehan doesn’t push this idea, let us not forget that the Kootenai has some trophies lurking in its deep runs, especially just below Libby Dam, which gave up the state record rainbow in 1987, a 38.6-inch monster weighing 33.1 pounds.

“It’s not about big fish,” Linehan believes. “It’s more about the experience, and this is the only place in Montana you can catch a native rainbow trout.”

Although there has been some habitation with other trout species and rainbow subspecies, the Kootenai River drainage has the distinction of having the only native rainbow trout in Montana, the interior redband rainbow trout. It’s a stream-dwelling variation of the Columbia River redband rainbow, which also produces the massive lake-dweller, the kamloops, and the famous sea-run rainbow we call steelhead.

The Kootenai also has a fishable populations of westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout and lots of mountain whitefish.

“It’s so uncrowded here,” he adds. “If we had 18-inch fish, it would be crowded. And there’s so much to see on this river.”

And you don’t see are very many other anglers or streamside trophy homes with nitrogen-rich greenscapes manicured down to the high-water mark.

If I had a hundred dollars for every time I went fishing the day or week after it was really hot, well, I’d be the richest outdoor writer in the country. That was the case when we spent our day with superguide Tim Linehan. He understands fishing the Kootenai as well as anybody, but had to admit the fish were “wicked tight today.”

He has even developed a fishing language all of his own, such as: “Let it hunt…pretty skinny water here…good run, but not holy…hit that bucket after that table…high stick this run.” You get the picture, right?

Even though our day was slightly off Linahan’s average, we caught fish all day, including a couple of 14-inch leapers, always great fun on a 5 weight. Plus, a lot of mountain whitefish, which some anglers scorn, but not me. It’s a native species, something you can’t say for those imported browns and rainbows. Linehan agrees and likes to promote “whitefish love.”

Linehan took us on a scenic stretch right below Libby Dam, but the following day, we went out on our own in my boat and fished the stretch from Libby (putting in right in town) down to just above Kootenai Falls, which has a distinction most people don’t know about. A few years back, an energy company proposed putting another dam at Kootenai Falls, and this became one of the very few, if not the only, major dam ever rejected because it would harm the fishery.

After soaking in all Linehan’s advice and lingo the previous day, we had it figured out, sort of, and managed to have steady action all of our second day on the magnificent Kootenai River.

One more difference between the Kootenai and most of Montana’s trout rivers; it’s much more of a destination. Probably half the people fishing the Madison, Missouri and Yellowstone do it on their way to somewhere else, but not so for the Kootenai. You usually go to Kootenai Country on purpose, as you should. It’s tucked away in far northwestern Montana, not really on the way to anywhere else, and the river flows right through Libby, the City of Eagles. (If you’re wondering why they call it that, go there and you’ll see.)

That’s precisely why I’ll be back next year for a few more relaxing, trout-filled days on Montana’s least-populated blue-ribbon river.

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