Smith River Trips

Ah yes, the Smith River. Touted as one of Montana's more pristine rivers to float; so much so, FWP has limited the number of permits to reduce the use and preserve the resource. Starting near White Sulphur Springs, the Smith flows north to the Missouri River, converging near Ulm, MT some 200 river miles away. As a floater, the trip begins at Camp Baker near Sheep Creek and ends at the Eden Bridge 59 miles downstream. Once you're in, you are in and there's no getting out. A typical trip will take 4 or 5 days depending on flow and ambition and with low water, you will be dragging boats, which will definitely slow the progress.

We gambled on weather this year, putting in on April 16 and taking out on the 20th. The flow was up over 300cfs at the beginning, dropped to around 200 the first day and came up to over 700 by the end. It snowed on day one, but we were prepared, bringing a wall tent and a wood burning stove--we didn't need the stove or the tent after that first day as the temps pushed 75 degrees each day following.

They say you don't float the Smith for the fishing and I'm a little more understanding of that after this week. We fished hard and conditions weren't bad as for the water clarity and levels but we only managed to put a handful in the the boat with the biggest just under the 20 inch mark. There were skwalas on the bank but other than that, the bug life was lacking and with the instability of flow and water temps, most of the fish we caught were tucked right up on the cliff walls are hanging in the eddies. As a group we did just as well on streamers as nymphs and since streamers are more fun, my boat only drifted the bobber for a total of a couple hours or so.

We had two guides on the trip, myself being one of them, and Jeff Rawlings the other. Jeff has guided on the Smith a number of times so we let him run the show. I would definitely recommend either using an outfitter or having someone well experienced on your group before going if you plan to do the Smith. Jeff definitely helped stave off any real issues and our experience was overwhelmingly a positive one because we had the provisions we needed. When issues did come up, we had the appropriate gear we knew how to deal with it.

It's inevitable that you will hit rocks on the Smith and you will drag boats during normal flows. You can't avoid it. It's extremely important to rig your boat to keep hard bottoms such as coolers and ammo boxes off the floor of your boat. We had one bucket boat on the trip with its rigging a little low and ass-heavy and the vinyl bottom got pinched between the casting platform and a rock. The video shows the process we went through to fix the problem and within a couple hours, we were back on the river.

On that note, keep 'em where they live y'all.