Fishing Report for week of 4/15/2012

Dry fly cuttbow

After some pretty tough fishing last week, the Bitterroot roared back to life on Mon. It was the first of five days with long-time angler Bob Rembert and we picked a stretch on the middle Bitterroot. The water had been on the drop for the last few days and with the warm and mostly cloudy forecast I figured we would be in for some good fishing. We started the morning with a dry/dropper rig and Bob was picking off fish right above the put-in. We landed quite a few smaller (10-13") trout in the morning, but he also had a bright 17" bow. After landing three fish in a run, with a couple on the dry we decided to do an early lunch in anticipation of the dry fly fishing to come. After packing up, we switched over to a single skwala dry and the fish came absolutely unglued in the afternoon! It was literally non-stop action from 12:20 to 3:30. There were a pile of smaller fish on the hunt, but we were also seeing quality trout in spots too. At one point we landed at least 5 trout in three consecutive runs. There were a bunch of bugs around today with skwalas, march browns, and gray drakes all on the water. Some days that can make for tricky fishing where some fish are keyed in on drakes and others on the stonefly, but today we got virtually every rising fish to eat the skwala. We witnessed some pretty awesome dry fly takes today with fish absolutely crushing the dry. Later in the afternoon the fishing slowed from fever pitch to very good and our average fish got bigger as well. Bob landed a number of 18" class bows and cuttbows and a nice 17" brown to go along with an unreal amount of 12-16" trout. It was by far the best day of fishing I've seen this year and one of the best days of skwala fishing for numbers of trout that I've ever experienced! Spring fishing is always a bit of a gamble and today we hit the jackpot.

So after the best day of dry fly fishing so far this season, what did we do today? Went up the Blackfoot to streamer fish of course!?! The thing I like about Bob is he'd go fish a muddy irrigation ditch with me if I told him I thought it would be good. That willingness to take a chance has led to some epic fishing in the past, and it's also led to our fair share of ass kickings as well. It's part of the game and Bob has seen the upside often enough to know that the risk is worth the reward. We headed up to the canyon today with hopes of big fish on streamers. The big meat didn't produce much all morning. Bob had a handful of grabs and a chunky 17" cuttbow by the time we reached the Munchmore hole. The bright sun wasn't doing us any favors so we switched to a nymph rig and the results were immediate. Bob hooked over 8 in that run including a few fat 16-17" cuttbows. I focused on specific spots through the canyon and almost every run produced multiple fish. It was outstanding nymph fishing the rest of the day. We never got the big boys to eat the streamer, but we landed a ton of healthy 12-17" cutts and bows. The weather was perfect, warm with little wind and we had the entire river to ourselves. I'm sure the dry fly fishing was solid again today on the Bitterroot, but the Blackfoot was gorgeous, the fish were willing, and there wasn't another soul around.

Wed. Bob's long-time fishing buddy, Roger Austin, joined us for a day on the Bitterroot. After some warm weather the river was back on the rise so I picked a float on the lower river hoping to stay ahead of the push of water. Our morning was par for the course with most of the fish coming on a stonefly nymph dropper. We had a couple trout take a whack at the dry throughout the morning and then just before lunch we started to see a few bugs around. I stopped and switched the guys over to single dry flies. While I was still rigging Roger up, Bob stuck a nice big rainbow on the dry. Not long after that Roger coaxed a hefty brown out of a tight little hole in the bank. That fish wrapped around a bunch of tree limbs under water and I thought for sure we'd lose him but Roger managed to get the fish back out of the tangle and into the net. With the fish starting to look up I decided to stop and eat so we'd be ready when the bugs poured off in the afternoon. The only problem was that the bugs didn't pour off in the afternoon, in fact they pretty much disappeared completely. Distant clouds keep teasing us as well while we baked in the bright sun. We caught some fish in the afternoon and most everything that ate the fly was a good sized trout from 16-19", but it was tougher than we thought it would be. A combination of bright sun, rising water levels, boat traffic, and no bugs made the trout a little grumpy. We still had a great time on the water, I always enjoy having Roger in the boat, and there were some gorgeous fish today.

Midge Brownie!

After a great dinner with friends on Rock Creek with world class home made pizza by Mike Lombardi, Bob and I made the trip over the pass to the Missouri for two days of fishing. On Bob's spring trip we usually fish the Mo one day during the week, but with all the rivers in western Montana on the rise we decided to make an overnight trip out of it. We stopped in Helena to pick up provisions since we were renting an awesome cabin overlooking the river. After all the little stops we finally hit the middle river around noon. It was cloudy and relatively calm and we started fishing streamers. It didn't take long for Bob to hook three or four on the streamer rig and then we started to see some fish rising to midges. We switched over to a little midge cluster and the next couple hours was some of the best dry fly midge fishing I've ever seen. I found a little current seam with three or four fish rising. I thought they were mostly little fish, but when Bob came tight on the first one, a 17" bow I realized they were all good trout. Everytime Bob would hook a trout it seemed like two more would slide in to replace it and start feeding. I don't know how many fish we hooked on that current seam, but it was over 10 nice rainbows. It's hard to beat 16-20" bows on a size 18 dry and 5x tippet. We went from one current seam to the next picking off risers until we came to a calm part of the bank and I spotted a big fish feeding up under some overhanging willow branches. Degree of difficulty for this presentation was an 8 or 9. The fish was tucked up under the willows tight to the bank. There was only one gap in the branches to get the fly in close enough to the fish and then Bob had to feed at least 15 feet of slack into the drift to allow the fly to make it down to the feeding trout. After 20+ attempts everything came together and the fish ate the fly. Bob set the hook and a big brown erupted in a cartwheeling jump from under the willows. It was perfect. There are scores of great trout over the course of a season, but there's only a handful of special moments like that; big trout in a super tough spot on a tiny fly and light tippet. I won't forget that brown trout anytime soon. We continued catching fish on midges until the hatch petered out and the wind picked up. We switched back to streamers with reasonable success and then when the wind really started to howl we rowed for the take out.

Mo Rainbow

Fri. I really wanted to head back lower on the Missouri for streamer and midge fishing, but the weather was telling me to point my rig toward the dam. It was bright sun which typically means marginal streamer and dry fly fishing. A nymph rig on the upper river is fairly impervious to the weather and I knew Bob could stick a bunch of nice fish under the indicator today. Since we stayed the night we were able to get on the water early and row upstream to one of the best runs on the river. We stayed in that one spot for over two hours and hooked at least one fish on every pass that we made. Most were good sized bows from 16-20", but we also saw a few of the smaller 12-14" bows in the river. We finally cut loose from that run and started drifting downstream. Every spot that I thought should produce a fish, did produce and most runs Bob had several strikes. In one particular run I think we had five fish hooked, and the last was one of the hardest fighting rainbows I've seen. Bob's been around the block and knows how to play trout, but this fish just wouldn't give up. After a long battle we landed a gorgeous 20+" bow that was so thick Bob could hardly hold it. After lunch there was a traffic jam of boats so I opted for a little side channel that no one else had been down. It's funny how little decisions like that can make or break the day. We ended up finding a small shallow water spot where fish were midging and I didn't pick up the anchor for over 2.5 hours. The sun made the fish a little reluctant to rise, but we dropped a little zebra midge 4" below our dry and sight fished to big Mo rainbows. It was a blast watching the fish react to the fly, and it was amazing how many fish were stacked up in a small spot. I couldn't tell you how many fish we poked out of that spot, but there were 4 20" class rainbows with the biggest a 22" stud and many more in the 14-18" range. After that spectacle it was hard to go back to the indicator rig so we just cruised the river looking for some more midging fish. We finally found another bucket in a maze of side channels and Bob lit up a bunch of other big bows with a couple more approaching 20" and the rest from 17-19". When the fishing finally slowed down it was getting late and we cruised down to the boat ramp and back to Rock Creek. It was another great day on the Mo and an awesome week with one of my favorite anglers.

Snowy Mo Bow

Sun. I fished with Linda Hogg and Frank Heigel. We set out again for the Missouri since our local water is still a little out of shape. Linda hasn't fly fished much in the past and Frank hadn't tossed a fly in 15 years, but I knew the river would produce for us. The weather didn't help much though, after driving through snow over the pass the white stuff was still falling as we launched the boat. It made for tough conditions with bulky clothes and gloves on, and ice building up in the guides but Linda and Frank were troopers and persevered despite the elements. We hooked a bunch of nice fish today and brought some real nice rainbows to the net. Linda landed her first rainbow on the fly and Frank boated a couple great bows over 18". Both anglers fished really well today with good casts and few tangles, but the cold made it tough to feel the line after hooking up, and there were a number of fish that got away simply because it was hard to control the fly line with big gloves and numb hands. Toward the end of the float Frank hooked up on a big brown that stretched the tape near 20" and Linda boated her biggest bow of the day at 16". I had a blast fishing with these two today. A lot of folks would have had second thoughts considering the conditions, but Linda and Frank never complained and were rewarded with a bunch of nice fish. I look forward to fishing again with Linda later this summer and I hope Frank makes it out again soon.

Conditions locally are back on the verge of very good dry fly fishing again. The Bitterroot is clear and the bugs are out, but it is still flowing a little heavy. The weather looks good for this coming week and I expect to see fish on dries again soon.