09-23 REELLIFE digital - Flipbook - Page 10
mike carey
Imagine waking up in a place
where you could keep five
chinook a day, use two rods,
barbed hooks, and have a legit
chance at multiple twenty-pound
plus fish. On top of that, no punch
cards, or shortened seasons.
Sounds too good to be true?
Some pipe dream in a faraway
land that time forgot? Well, I’m
here to tell you there exists just
such a place. It’s been happening
for years now and is closer than
you may think.
I’m speaking of a place you’d not
likely think of when it comes to
chinook salmon.
10 | NWFISHING.net
That place is Montana, and the
location is Fort Peck Reservoir.
My son Matt and I recently got
to fulfill a Bucket List dream we’d
been talking about for years,
namely the Fort Peck Chinook
Fishery. We were joined by NWF
co-host Rob Holman, and Shelby
Ross of Ross Outdoor Adventures.
Shelby may be a walleye guide,
but he was down for a trip to Fort
Peck. And I sent Rob a steady
stream of recent angler catches,
feeding his enthusiasm. They
made the ten-hour drive from
Spokane, while Matt and I had a
relatively easy five-hour drive from
Great Falls to this reservoir in the
northeast corner of Montana.
The trip goes fast because in
Montana you can drive fast, 7580 miles an hour, and there’s
little traffic to contend with. Just
keep an eye out for stray deer
and antelope, and the occasional
suicidal pheasant.
We met at the Cottonwood Inn
and Suites in Glasgow, which
turned out to be a great place to
stay as a base camp for fishing Ft
Peck. 18 minutes from the boat
launch, Cottonwood Inn and
Suites has all the amenities an
angler could want, including free
charging stations to recharge
trolling batteries.
It also has RV camping for those
with RVs.