Reel Deep In Montana Rivers-Bruce Holt

With Reel Deep in Montana’s Rivers, the last volume of the trilogy that began with Knee Deep in Montana’s Trout Streams and continued to Waist Deep in Montana’s Lakes, John Holt brings to a close his celebrated chronicle of fly fishing in Montana.

Touring the Middle Fork of the Flathead, the Swan, and the Blackfoot rivers in the northwest, the Sun River in central Montana, and the Jefferson and Tongue in the south-central region of the state, John Holt holds forth with acerbic abandon on topics as diverse as the geology of the Flathead Valley, the lore and legend of the Woolly Bugger, and the grand fantasy of stocking the Tongue with taimen.

But these witty wandering have an edge, too, as John Holt considers the dark cloud of environmental depredation currently bearing down on his adopted home state. From the dwindling bull trout population to the increasingly acrimonious disputes over water rights to the growing specters of mining, clear cutting, and overgrazing, Montana is facing an environmental showdown that may well determine the fate of its spectacular fishery.