Georgetown Lake

Overview

Georgetown Lake lies on Montana Highway 1 between Anaconda and Philipsburg, about 2,818 acres of water at 6,383 feet by FWP's figures, framed by the Pintler, Sapphire and Flint Creek ranges. It is technically a reservoir: Flint Creek Dam, built in the late 1800s and enlarged in 1901, floods the meadow at the head of North Fork Flint Creek known as Georgetown Flats, and water is released from the base of the dam for hydropower and irrigation. It is shallow, roughly 16 feet on average, and so weedy and fertile that FWP calls it one of the most heavily fished waters per acre in the state. Rainbows are managed as a harvest fishery and stocked in large numbers; FWP's biologist put the average at about 14 inches after the five-fish limit came in, with fish of 15 to 20 inches common. Brook trout are the trophy: catch-and-release rules from 2004 grew brookies past 20 inches, and the current regulation allows only one brook trout, over 16 inches, in the limit. A self-sustaining kokanee population rounds it out. This is sight-fishing water. From July, big rainbows cruise within a rod length of shore in inches of water, and the hatches that matter are the early July damselfly emergence in Stuart Mill Bay, the size 10 traveling sedge that skitters offshore in late June and July, Callibaetis through summer, and midges from ice-out. The trade-off is winter: the lake is capped with ice from mid-November into May, and the south and east shorelines, including Stuart Mill Bay, are closed until July 1 to protect spawning fish.