A small and often overlooked section in the southwest corner of Montana, cut off from the rest of the country by the Bitterroot, Pioneer, and Anaconda Mountain ranges, is home to one of the most beautiful and tragic river valleys in the Rockies—the Big Hole River Valley. Home to isolated ranches and farms, the Big Hole River flows north from its origins in the Bitterroot Range, moving slowly through the rich bottom land, then occasionally plunging through canyons until it joins with the Jefferson after a circumnavigation of the lowlands around the Pioneer Mountains.

There is not much here except for isolated farms in a valley known as the land of 10,000 haystacks. However, one of this nation’s great tragedies took place nearby, at the Big Hole Battlefield. Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce tribe held off John Gibbon’s cavalry force, with the loss of many of their men, women, and children. They succeeded in escaping only to be caught in October of 1877 just 40 miles from the Canadian border and safety. It was one of the most poignant and heartbreaking stories of the Native American in a western history fraught with such heartbreak.

In 1983 Craig Fellin and his wife Peggy bought a small cabin at the confluence of the Wise River and the Big Hole. They opened with room for two anglers. The only access at the time was eight miles of unimproved dirt road. Since then the lodge has grown to accommodate twelve anglers. The main lodge was built from lodge pole pine and river rock on the property. It fits this remote and quiet land—unassuming, but wonderfully comfortable—and offers fishing in what many seasoned anglers regard as the finest river in Montana.

Perhaps what sets this lodge apart, aside from its quiet location and extraordinary fishery, is the quality of the guides. The master guides at Big Hole Lodge have more than 100 years of fly fishing experience and come from all over the world, but each year they loyally return to spend their summers with Craig and Peggy in the Big Hole Valley. Most of the employees have been with the operation for over ten years, which says something about the owners and the quality of the experience that visitors will receive. Chef Lanette Evener is one such employee and is an accomplished angler as well as an accomplished chef.

The lodge offers three miles of private access to the Beaverhead River on a working cattle ranch leased since 1986. There is also a lease on a spring creek nearby with three miles of private water. Other rivers that can be fished include the Bitterroot, Rock Creek, and the Ruby.

While there are most certainly lodges with more elaborate facilities, Big Hole Lodge seems to fit its environs perfectly, offering some of the finest fishing in Montana, in one of the quietest and most beautiful corners of the state, a corner that is less traveled, but once discovered will beckon the angler again and again.