Customer Reviews

Fishing the Beartooths

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Sometimes the hardest part of getting to Beartooth-Absaroka lakes is finding the trailhead. Great detail is given by Pat Marcuson in traveling this incredible area. After 50/60 trips into this wilderness I wouldn't be without this book! I met Pat several times in the late seventies and his knowledge of this area is quite remarkable and reflected in this book.

I've been there and the few lakes I've experienced we're exactly as described in the book. You can't value the information here! Great job.

The author managed the fisheries and fish stocking program in the Beartooths for many years, and provides enormous detail in this book about every lake that has fish. There have been some changes since he wrote the first edition, and not all of them are noted in this latest edition (1997) but, overall, the info is great. I don't know of a similarly complete and authoritative fishing guide to any other wilderness area. One small gripe: this book talks solely about the lakes of the Beartooths without mentioning that some of the best fishing is in the feeder and outlet streams, some of them a long way from the nearest lakes.

Mr. Marcuson clearly has an encyclopedic knowledge of his subject, and communicates it well. Even if you're not planning to fish the area, you'll easily get your money's worth from his descriptions of scenic attractions, camping possibilities, trails, routes, wildlife, and other background information - as well as an assurance of where the fishermen and outfitters won't be if you're looking for the most in wilderness solitude.

My caveats are minor:
1. The index follows the same scheme as the book (organized by drainage), which I found to be a nuisance when looking for a lake by name.
2. You may need a magnifying glass for the maps showing the lake index numbers.
3. Restarting the lake index numbers at 1 for each drainage makes it easier find the wrong description; this could easily be addressed by numbering all of the lakes sequentially, or using a drainage prefix character.
4. A couple of additional indexes organizing the lakes by size, species habitation, abundance, most recent stocking year, and so forth wouldn't have cost too much and would have made the book much easier to use as a reference. Maybe Mr. Marcuson was trying to keep it from being too easy to find his favorite fishing holes, though.

The author is a biologist with experience in the area. He is also an entertaining writer. Anyone exploring the Northern Yellowstone / Beartooth area for fishing should get this book. It will lead you to some of the best places.

It is a wonderful area to explore and this book is the best guide.

Good guide to all the lakes in the Beartooth Mountains. Ever wonder if all those lakes have fish in them. This book tells you. Tells you depths and last time they were stocked and other useful information.

Pat Marcuson knows the beartooths. If you are planning a trip into the Absaroka/Beartooth wilderness area you need two things a good map and this book. After a few trips into the Montana wilderness especially the Beartooths you will quickly find out you need to know what your up against and what going to be there when you get there. Pat's book will give you the best fishing advice because he's been there and fished the lakes for a decade working for Montana's Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. So again if you're a fisherman looking for trout in the Beartooths you have to get this book.

This is the best fishing guide that I have ever read. When I first purchased the book, I had little experience or success with fishing for trout in mountain lakes. I had taken an earlier backpacking trip to the Beartooth Mountains, but only caught 4-5 fish in 9 days. Then I purchased and studied this book in detail and during my next two 9-day backpacking trips to the Beartooth Mountains, I caught fish for dinner almost every night. Where once I had to settle for catching small brook trout, I now could plan trip routes to catch big fat Cutthroat trout for dinner. It was a true joy to read the detailed descriptions of each mountain lake and to understand Pat's reasoning behind stocking each lake with specific trout species. Not only that, but Pat gives you details on what years are the best to fish each lake based on their individual stocking schedules. Finally, Pat gives invaluable fishing tips such as how to locate and catch fish in these remote mountain lakes. I thank Pat for what has become a lifelong joy of trout fishing throughout the west.