Fishing the Sluices

I went fly fishing up at Sluice Boxes State Park, Sunday. I had been a frequent angler up there in my youth, but this was the first time i had fished it in twenty years. It is still the same beautiful limestone canyon that Belt Creek meanders through. It is not a large creek, but there are many beautiful ledge pools, drop pools and large rocks in the stream bed that fish love.
I got there early and set-up my St Croix, Avid 3 wt. I wore my light weight Simms waders and wore my vest. I packed a sandwich and brought along a bottle of water. The walk to the stream is beautiful, going up through the canyon. I walked to the first ford in the creek by the old youth camp, which is now a dilapidated wreck. I used to stay at that camp, attending youth retreats given by my Church. I met my first Wife there. That was a long time ago.
I started my fishing there. My first choice was to put on a dry fly. There were no insects visible at that time. I had no results with dries so i changed to nymphs and caught one small rainbow. I thought things were looking up, but being so early in the day the fish were still mostly uninterested. I fished up the stream and caught a few more small fish. As the day warmed up i started to see more insects. The fish began to feed on the surface, sucking in small mayfly spinners, yellow sallies and other insects. I was able to catch and release a few nice fat Rainbows and one beautiful Cutthroat Trout on dry flies. I used a quill bodied Flav imitation. I didn't see any flavs on the water, but i believe they are in the area, the spinners i saw falling on the water looked like they may have been from a Flav mayfly. It was fun catching those small trout. The largest one was about 16". Belt creek has Brown, Rainbow, Cutthroat and Brook trout in it. You never know what you will catch. I was surprised to catch the Cutthroat. It looked a lot like the Yellowstone Cutthroat I have caught in Idaho.
Belt Creek is not really a Blue Ribbon Fishery . It has a lot of problems, due to it's history as a stream located in a rich mining area. There used to be several mines operating in it's upper drainages. There is a lot of leaching from old mines going into the stream. The bio-mass of the stream is very low. There used to be a great fishery years ago, but over fishing took it's toll. The narrow gauge railroad that used to chug up the canyon had a fishing train that brought anglers up there from Great Falls, Belt and other communities. In those days anglers used to fill their creels.
I feel that Belt Creek is a great stream to fish. It won't give you tons of catching, but it has a beautiful setting, rich history, and solitude.