In Missoula to get gas and groceries. Spent three nights in an NFS campground because there was virtually no dispersed camping. Still, another streamside campsite and only 2 other parties in the campground. Weekenders started showing up last night however.
Rock Creek is a river about the size of the Farmington River in CT. It flows through a tight canyon/gorge that is heavily forested with conifers. NFS gouged out a narrow road that closely follows the "Creek". Like the Wise River there are 4 or 5 very small NFS campgrounds.
Rain followed me from the Wise and stayed for the next two days with intermittent showers. Nonetheless, there was a window of time to fish. Caught 2 whitefish near my campsite but to get down to the river required scrambling down a 40 nearly vertical bank made of loose rock and dirt.
At dusk there was another break in the weather and tons of bus were hatching. Caught every kind trout (except the big kind) including flying fish which are tiny trout that aggressively hit a fly prompting an aggressive hook set from me. The poor fish gets yanked right out of the water, and flies 10 or more feet.
A ranger told me as I was walking back to my campsite that the weather would be bad for yet another day making it 5 rainy days in a row.
Woke up in the morning to blue skies and it stayed that way all day. I sampled several pools and had a warm and sunny afternoon the kind you dream about. No one else on the river the whole time. Excellent water level. Pretty.
Missoula is as far west as I intend to go on this trip. I'm hoping to try the Clark Fork River and some of the creeks that feed it from the mountain range to the west. I'll try to find dispersed camping in the National Forests east of the river
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