A fly-fishing lodge on private water in the Tamsen Valley, western Montana. One week at a time from April to October, three guides, one chef, and every fish goes back.
Walk the river, pool by pool
My father bought the Calloway place in 1974 for the hay meadows. Four miles of the Tamsen came with them, both banks, and for thirty years the only people who fished it were family and the neighbors who asked first.
We opened the lodge in 2008 with ten guests a week. By the third summer the Lodge Pool was being fished six times a day and the big browns had moved off. In 2011 we cut to six and never went back. Six anglers across four miles means each pair has well over a mile of river to itself, every day of the week.
There is no pro shop, no television and no bar tab. There is a mudroom that dries your waders overnight, a chef who takes the week as seriously as the guides do, and a river that is quieter in October than it was when I was a girl.
Ruth Calloway, owner
This is the water you will fish, drawn from the guides’ notebooks. Choose a pool to see what lives there, when it fishes best, and the fly Emmett would tie on.
Swipe the map to follow the river downstream.
“Forty yards from the porch steps. Guests who cannot wait for breakfast fish it at first light in their slippers, and the evening rise here is why dinner is at half past eight.”
Every week runs the same way, so you can plan the flights before you call. The price is per angler, with six nights and everything below included.
We collect you from the afternoon flights into Missoula. Rods are rigged on the porch, Emmett walks you along the lower beat, and the first dinner is at half past eight.
The upper beat with your guide. Gate Riffle in the morning so we can see your cast, the Long Glide after lunch, the Lodge Pool before dinner if you still have legs.
The middle water: the Ledge, Heron Flat and the Spring Creek seam. Lunch is cooked on the gravel bar by whichever guide lost the coin toss.
The drift day. Your guide rows the whole four miles in the wooden boat and you fish from the bow, top gate to rail bridge, about seven hours on the water.
Your choice of water. Most guests go back to the pool that beat them on Monday. A few take the afternoon off and sleep on the porch, which is also allowed.
The last full day, the evening rise on the Lodge Pool, and a late dinner on the porch with the guides at the table.
Breakfast, a flask of coffee for the road, and the drive back to Missoula by ten.
A deposit of $2,000 holds your place. The balance is due sixty days before you arrive.
Each guest has a room of their own, named for a pool on the river. Couples who both fish take two, and most of them tell us it was the best decision of the trip. The walls are pine from the ridge behind the barn, and the stoves are lit before you are back from the evening rise.
Nadia Ferro cooked for eleven years in Portland before she came to the valley in 2016. She buys lamb from the Hallorans up the road, bakes every morning at five, and packs the lunches the guides cook on the gravel bars. Trout never appears on her table. Every fish on this water goes back, and she says serving one would be bad manners.
Garden peas, mint and sheep’s milk ricotta
from the kitchen garden
Halloran lamb shoulder, smoked over cottonwood
the ranch up the road
Flathead cherry galette, cold cream
cherries from the lake
Dinner is at half past eight, after the evening rise, at one long table.
You fish with the same guide for the week unless you ask to swap, and the guides rotate the water so that no pool is fished twice in a day.
Head guide, on this water since 2008
Grew up two valleys over and has fished the Tamsen for forty years. Keeps a notebook for every pool, and he wrote every note on the map above.
Guide since 2015
Casting instructor in the winters. Guests arrive with a habit they have had for twenty years and leave on Saturday without it.
Guide since 2019
Rows the drift boat on Wednesdays and ties the streamers for October. Knows where the beavers have moved to this month.
We pinch every fly before it leaves the box, including the ones you bring.
If you want a photograph, the trout is lifted for a count of five and goes straight back into the current.
In a hot August that means we stop at two and start again at dusk. The state rule is higher. Ours is stricter, and the river is better for it.
Not for the table and not for the wall. Every fish on this water since 2008 has gone back.
June and September go first, usually by Christmas. The shoulder months are quieter, colder and, for big browns, better.
| Month | On the water | Water | 2027 weeks open |
|---|---|---|---|
| April | Skwala stoneflies and blue-winged olives. Big browns on streamers in cold water. | 42 to 48°F | 2 of 4 |
| May | Caddis by the thousand on May evenings. Runoff can muddy a day or two. | 46 to 52°F | 3 of 4 |
| June | Salmonflies late in the month, then pale morning duns. Our most requested month. | 50 to 56°F | Full, waitlist only |
| July | Golden stones, PMDs and the first hoppers. The best evenings of the year. | 56 to 62°F | 1 of 4 |
| August | Hoppers along the banks and cold fish at the Spring Creek seam. Early starts. | 60 to 66°F | 2 of 5 |
| September | Tricos in the morning, hoppers after lunch, and very few other anglers anywhere. | 52 to 58°F | Full, waitlist only |
| October | Browns on streamers, olives on gray days. We close after the week of the 17th. | 42 to 50°F | 2 of 3 |
Sample reviews, shown for illustration.
“I have fished private water in three countries. None of it was run with this much care, and none of it had Emmett.”
“Jo fixed a tailing loop I have had since the nineties in one morning on the Gate Riffle. My wife says I have not stopped talking about it.”
“We came for the browns and talk more about Nadia’s lamb shoulder than any fish. Book the October week. Trust me.”
Ruth answers every enquiry herself, usually the same evening. Give us two or three weeks that would work, and we will hold a place for seven days while you decide.