July 13-15th – Helena, MT

Laura Dierbeck

 

July 13-15
Breweries and Fly Fishing
Helena, Montana

Way too much fun with Jake in the Helena area.

After having some quiet time in the woods it was time to get back to civilization. Plus we had new entries for the blog. We made our way to Montana’s capital city, Helena. Helena seems to be an off the radar city for Montana. The popular cities being, Missoula, Bozeman, and Billings is where all the cool kids congregate. So, Helena wasn’t even on our radar. But there is a lot going on here. There are several breweries, lots of historic buildings, an active young crowd. There is even a free shuttle ride for Mountain Bikers that takes them up into the surrounding hills so they can get to the trails easier. Also, Laura’s former MCC co-worker Jake lives here and he said we could stay on his couch and use his shower.

Most of our time in Helena was spent at the library, but we are so glad we had a friend to hang out with who showed us cool brewery, made us dinner one night and took us fishing on Saturday.

This is why we love Montana 😉
Checking out Historic Reeding Alley

Cool Sculpture near their History Museum
Where we spent most of our time in Helena
Jake has an awesome backyard!

Lemonade stand near Jake’s house.
Deer just wander through the neighborhoods in Helena.
One of the many great breweries in this town.
IPA for Laura. Red Amber for Camrin.
New friends 🙂
Making friends with Westy owners.
Cute dog reminding us of a certain dog back in Fredonia, WI

 

So, we’ve been trying to learn to fly fish. Before we left Milwaukee, Camrin’s brothe

r Johnny gave us one of his fly rods. We’ve taken it out a few times, but we don’t really know what we’re doing. It’s so much different than “regular fishing”. Thankfully, our friend Jake took us to this sweet lake just outside of Helena and gave us some lessons. Camrin did great!! She caught two fish. One a trout and the other a Grayling. Even Jake caught a few fish. There’s just something about fly fishing in Montana. It takes a lot of skill and patience all the while being surrounded by beautiful nature. We can see why they write novels about this sport.

Here are some photos of us fly fishing.

Inflating Jake’s paddle boat.

Gotta get your feet yet for fly fishing.
Some of our flys
Jake’s sweet fly rod.
FLY
Tying on the fly.
The white bottle contains “float” . It’s an oil solution that helps keep the fly floating on the surface of the water.

A sweet VW van showed up.
Awesome Catch! A Grayling
Jake looks proud of Cam’s catch.
Yay Jake. His fish flipped off the hook before I could get a better photo.
Another catch for Camrin. A cutthroat hybrid trout.
One of Laura. She mostly took photos that day.
After Fishing, Jake was kind of enough to send us off with a few more flys. He has quite the collection.

Thank you Jake for the fishing lesson!! We had a blast!!!

Up next hanging out in Missoula, MT and our first WWOOFing experience!

Related posts