Today's post originally ran as a KUFM Commentary by Hellgate Hunters & Anglers Board member Kit Fischer.
May 16, 2013
I've visited the East Rosebud River
every summer I've lived in Montana.
Flowing North out of the Absaroka-Beartooth
Wilderness, the East Rosebud winds for some 30 miles before it’s joined by
other aspen-lined tributaries- eventually flowing into the Stillwater and the
Yellowstone River near Columbus. The
water runs cold and clear, with very little diverted for agriculture and nearby
development. By late August, when other streams
feel like luke-warm kiddy pools, the creek remains cooled by the high elevation
snowmelt fed from the 10,000 foot Beartooth plateau.
Rainbows, cutthroats and brown trout feed voraciously
– even during the middle of the day, feasting on the thousands of grasshoppers blown
in from the gusty winds that come down the granite canyons to the south. The bird life is equally spectacular – western
tanagers, yellow warblers, rare broad-tailed hummingbirds and far off, the eerie
call of what sounds like some prehistoric pterodactyl, the trumpet of a sandhill
cranes fill the valley.
The river is lined with thick
willows, redosier dogwood and aspen thickets, forming a nearly impenetrable
fortress from would be wade fishermen.
The stream still flows how an old mountain stream should; the cut-banks
constantly shift during spring runoff and the willows and beavers take care of
the rest. Its fine gravel bottom reflects
sunlight from mica and quartz instead of beer cans and bumpers. In 1989 the
Forest Service deemed a seven mile section of the creek suitable for federal
Wild and Scenic designation, although Montana hasn't awarded a new wild and
scenic designation since 1976.
Between the challenging access, icy
cold waters, hairpin turns and beaver dams, the river (although probably more
accurately, a creek) does a pretty good job of keeping itself a secret. I've only taken a handful of good friends
fishing there in the 20+ years I've made my yearly pilgrimage and I've never
seen another soul on the river.
We usually haul over my family’s venerable
aluminum Grumman canoe. A now ancient
relic that my folks acquired in the 70's and has probably explored more Montana
rivers than I could list. It’s virtually
indestructible. A tank of a canoe, it’s
probably worth more in scrap metal than its resale value as a watercraft, but
it has never let us down, even after dinging rocks loud enough to alert every
fish in the river.
But even the best kept secrets
don’t last. I should have known better—it’s
often the secret places that are most overlooked for their recreational and wildlife
values when energy development and resource extraction come along-- and the
East Rosebud is no exception. A Bozeman energy
development company has recently announced their interest in exploring the
possibility of developing a hydro-power site on the river. A dam would be located just upstream from my
“secret spot”.
It seems to be the catch-22 of all
the great hunting and fishing spots that I’ve frequented in Montana. If it’s an easy place to get to, and the
wildlife is abundant, the secret won’t last long—but at least it will exist for
future generations. It’s the places that
take a little extra effort to access – via two track, rutted dirt roads,
singletrack trails and bushwacking-- not highways and hotels-- that tend to hold
the best kept places. These places are
naturally guarded from becoming huge tourist destinations, but not guarded from
development- and Montana’s got plenty of them.
Maybe this year when I make my trip
to the East Rosebud I’ll bring a couple more friends along and hopefully in
return they will show me some other tucked away secret Montana place.