The
Armstrong/O'Hair ranch was settled in 1876 by O.T. Armstrong. O.T.
was a farmer from Missouri that had a number of crops lost to flooding
river in the Missouri river basin and decided to mover West. He arrived
a few miles south of Livingston and established a cattle ranch.
At the
time O.T. established the ranch it was only about 350 acres with
a small number of cattle. Today the under family management, the
property still operates as a working cattle ranch with over 1,000
head of
cows with
about
15,000
deed
acres and lease about the same amount of ground for the cattle to
graze.
In the
early years fishing on the spring creek was open to just about anyone
who asked. But in the 1970s, there became a higher demand to fish
the creek not to mention a lot more people. During this higher demand
The Orvis company along with a number of other fishing companies
leased and
managed
the property for the O'Hair family. After a few years of management
the ranch took over management and began to charge a small fee for
the use of the creek. Even in these early days of fishing family
encouraged catch and release of the fish to ensure that others would
have the same enjoyment of the stream.
Today
Armstrong's Spring Creek is recognized as one of the best spring
creeks in the world. This jewel of a stream was almost lost in 1996
after on of the worst floods on the Yellowstone River threatened
to envelope the creek. Massive amounts
of earth work and habitat restoration was undertaken to save the
creek. A large portion of the rod fees associated with fishing
the creek are used to pay for the work that was done in the 1990s
as
well as
to maintain and improve the health of this unique spring creek.
To learn more about the fishing at Armstrong's Spring Creek please
visit the Spring Creek Fishing section of
our web site.
