Yellowstone River Fishing Report Feb. 4, 2012

It was another beautiful day in Paradise Valley, just South of Livingston, Montana. It seems spring would like to change its tune from 2011 and try and make a very early appearance. However, as most long time Montana residents will tell you – well you never can tell.
This gave us another opportunity to do some more winter fly fishing. Highs were in the mid-40′s and with light winds and warm sunshine it was quite pleasant.
There was a steady hatch of midges on the Yellowstone River from about noon till 3pm. We fooled a few Rainbows with a Harrop CDC Midge and a few Whitefish fooled us as well. Overall, for fishing the Yellowstone River in February it was a great day.

That sunset certainly warmed the soul as well.

Missouri River Dry Fly Fix

OK, it’s 45 degrees in Livingston, Montana and feels more like spring than January.  So as we are sitting here working on a few bookings for next season we keep looking out the window and thinking about, what else, fishing of course.  Every year we spend the spring time hunting heads on the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. It’s still a couple months away from good dry fly fishing, but here’s a great video from our friends at 406 productions and a few of our local friends up on the Missouri.  For those of you looking to improve your dry fly technique check out the great down stream drifts these anglers are getting.

There’s nothing that will get you stoked for the upcoming fishing season like some good fish porn!

MFG’s New Look

As you may have noticed Montana Fly Fishing Guides is undergoing a bit of a make over.  In the past ten years we’ve been fortunate to have a great crew of guides, lodging partner and most of all great clients.  So things have been great, but as Paul Getty once said, “nostalgia often leads to idle speculation”.  We are determined not get caught up in that trap.

So along with our new logo you can expect a few more changes in the near future.  What’s up next? We’ll be over hauling the website to start.  We’ve really gone into detail and found out what YOU think is informative on our Montana Fly Fishing Guides website and plan to continue to develop those areas.  So look for the new website overhaul in the next month.

In the mean time what do you think about the new logo?  Please post your comments below.

Montana to Get Major Snow

Montana is getting pounded with snow – FINALLY! Well it’s taken a while, but I guess the weather guys are right la Nina is starting to show it self.  Good news for all Montana fly fishing anglers and those nay-sayers talking about the potential lack of water in many of Montana’s drainages.  We’ll keep you posted to what this system does to the snow pack, but current predictions are for several feet in the mountains.

Top 5 2011 Montana Fishing Highlights

Montana fly fishing is never boring, in fact the 2011 season was exceptionally exciting.  We thought we’d reminisce on some of the more notable highlights:

#5 – This one is our personal favorite – us getting to fish with fun people!  This might seem a bit sentimental, but we have to start this list off with the quality of people that we fished with last season.  Over the past 10 years we’ve meet some exceptionally great people and continued to develop long lasting relationships with others, and we look forward to it again in 2012.

#4 – PMD mania.  DePuy & Armstrong Spring Creeks had some fantastic hatches this season and this past July was exceptionally good.  Guide Eric and client Kris were able to capitalize with a remarkable 5 fish over 17″ in a few short hours.  They also had a shot a fish well over the 21″ mark but were unable to coax him to the fly.  I guess we’ll have to save that highlight for 2012.

#3 – Salmon flies on the Madison.  We had a two boat crew on a spectacular day from Lyon’s to Ruby.  Guides Eric and Zach saw more salmon fly dry eats in one day than in the past 4 years combined.  What made it especially memorable is that one of our clients has degenerating eye disease that will make it unlikely he’ll ever see a fish eat his fly again.  Certainly a sad condition we are just happy that he’ll remember that day for the rest of his life.

#2 – Fishing the Missouri River at 22,000 cfs.  No one has ever guided (our research) this river at that level.  Despite the high water the fishing was absolutely amazing.  Typical days were 20 – 40 fish averaging 18 inches.  Simply incredible!

Drum roll please…

#1 – Without a doubt was the record setting flows on the Yellowstone River.  The Yellowstone River peaked in early July (a month later than usual) at a record setting 38,000 cfs which equates to 284,000 gallons of water going by every second – a once in a lifetime sight!  While this definitely screwed up the fishing on the Yellowstone River until early August it was cool to see.  Check out this video take from Carter’s Bridge just south of Livingston.  

 

2012 Montana Snow Pack Update

Snow means water and water levels equate to summer fishing quality so here go:

After the past several seasons our this Montana winter is evening out.  With record setting levels last year this season is looking a bit more “normal” even by Montana standards.  Huge snow packs can be good for keeping the rivers cool and the trout happy, but it does tend to spread them out which can make it more challenging to fish.  In lower water years the fishing can be quite good as the fish are condensed, but water temperatures can be an issue.  So at this point our experience level tells us that this looks to be a quality 2012 water season, but we’ll have to just keep following it as the season progresses to know for sure.

Current snow pack levels by drainage:
Upper Yellowstone:  79% of average
Lower Yellowstone: 91% of average
Madison: 64% of average
Missouri: 70% of average
Smith: 77% of average
Bighorn: 92% of average

Stay tuned and we’ll keep you posted as a huge weather system is currently moving into western Montana.