Another day for the Memory Books ♥️

if you had told Mike and I growing up that one day we would be fly fishing down the Missouri River with our boys, we would have called you crazy. But today we did!

Woke up to the most peaceful site even if it was 6am. These big ol’ babies are Highland Cows – you know the ones in the pictures with the long hair over their eyes.

We had to be up, going, and on the road by 6:40. In typical Brown fashion, we left at 6:45 so we arrived at Cross Currents Fly Shop in Craig, Montana at 7:05… that’s 7am BST (Brown Standard Time).

We met our guides: Grant for Leo and I; and Bryce for Michael and Mike. We gave them our Montana fishing license (purchased online intermittently as we could get internet service), hopped in their trucks, and headed to the drop in site on the Missouri River.

We arrived at the drop in, and noticed that all the boats let an older couple go ahead of them in the drop in line to get their boat in first. Initially, I thought that’s nice since they’re older. Um no. Turns out, the older couple are the owners of Orvis, the company who make the fly-fishing clothing and gear. Our guides told us they were true fishermen, and were really good to the local guides so it was a sign of respect. (I kind of like knowing that the people who run a fly fishing company are still actually coming out to fish!)

We took off down the Missouri River. Not really took off… we rowed into the Missouri River is probably more accurate

We were all a little nervous about fly fishing, since we’d never done it before, and it looks kind of complicated. There is definitely more to it than “regular” fishing. I always have a hard time staying focused when I try to fish unless they are really biting. Fly fishing, on the other hand, keeps your focus because you are always pulling your line, keeping the line up end (so the current takes the hook down stream, not the line), and being ready to “set” when the bobbin went down.

Everyone caught fish, (Hallelujah) and we had a lot of fish that we almost caught!

We fished until lunchtime and then pulled under a few trees for lunch.

The lunches were made by one of the guide’s wife who started a business of catering lunches for the fishing excursions. The guides text her the first of the week with their lunch orders and she meets them at the shop at 6am with their days’ lunches pre-packed and ready for the day. The lunches were delicious!

After lunch, the boys splashed around a bit.

Then we headed out for a bit more fishing. We finished “fishing” around 2:30. After the water temperature hits about 68°, rainbow trout don’t bite.

So we rowed on for a spot that the guides told the boys about at lunch…

Oh, and we can add sheep to the list of animals and we’ve seen

We headed back to the metropolis of Craig, and stopped in the fly shop for souvenirs and Gatorades. Then we headed to Cascade for dinner. Since we are in the little cabin at Lil Valley Ranch, we can eat in – thank goodness.

We headed back to the little cabin and look what we found – another plaque!

Some of us were wiped out from fishing

We got home around 4pm and enjoyed watching the cows and just relaxing. We had been texting with the cabin owners and were finally able to meet them, David and Karen Allen are from Alaska and when they moved to Montana, they built the little cabin and lived in it while they built their current house. It’s a really cool little cabin.

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I am glad they completed the indoor plumbing before we came 😀

When the Allen’s moved here from Alaska, they decided to start raising cows. They chose Highland cows because they haven’t been cross bred as much and tend to have easy healthy births… and they are just so cute!

They raise their cows like we raise pigs. Only the breeding stock get names, and they love on them just like we do. The breeding stock are here on their 80 acre farm, but they have a much larger group on their 100+ acres a few miles away. They may start sending their cows to freezer camp instead of the processor from now on 😉

We cooked a great dinner of steak, roasted corn on the cob, marinated mushrooms and sweet potatoes. Montana sweet potatoes are not sweet like ours… I think they are trying to pass off yams as sweet potatoes to folks who don’t know the difference.

After dinner, we saw the Allen’s headed down to feed the cows and decided to take them up on their invitation to join them. They gave the boys a bucket of treats each and we had a blast feeding them.

They are like really big pigs who have horns and slobber a lot

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I’m so thankful we stayed here. We exchanged numbers with the owners because they were such kindred spirits. They sent us home with pickled relish and canned beets that Karen made, and fresh beef for burgers at our next stop. It was just a great evening, made just a bit better by ice cream and chocolate syrup on the front porch watching the sun go down (finally 😉)

It just doesn’t get much better than this ♥️