Yellowstone River fishing report – 07/16/10

We fished the Yellowstone River today up at Carbela to 26 mile. It was a successful day for father and son Todd and Kyle who had never fished from a drift boat before. We really concentrated on the dry fly today and got them to eat it after the breeze died a bit.
It was very hot (93 degrees) and windy but they ate the small Chubby Chernoble and later in the day the also ate a small CDC Prince trailer.
We also had one of our guides fish near Big Timber and had a solid fishing day mostly on the dry as well.
Stay tuned and we’ll keep you posted.

Yellowstone River fishing report – 07/12/10

We fished the Yellowstone River today and fished from Emigrant to Loch Leven. Fishing was definitely spotty but we did have good dry fly fishing from 11AM to 1PM and then the wind picked up and we had to go to the nymph.
The single CDC Prince in size 10 lit up for us for the last couple hours.
Fishing is a bit tough when the wind picks up but stay with it and you’ll get the trout in the right spots.

Yellowstone River report – 07/11/10

We fished the upper Yellowstone River today. The fishing was spotty but we had good fishing on golden stone and salmonfly dries in spots. The 20 minutes of hail, rain and lightning didn’t help us at noon, but aftewards the fishing picked up.

Montana is truely one of the few places where if you wait 10 minutes the weather can completely change!

Doing it again tomorrow so we’ll keep you posted – remember if you don’t go you won’t know!

Yellowstone & Creek Report – 07/10/10

Summary:

We’ve been chasing Salmonflies on the Yellowstone River and the switched gears and have been on the spring creeks of Armstrong’s and DePuy’s for the past couple days.  Fishing has been great overall.  The Yellowstone has fished well when the warmer weather has showed up and gets the big bugs moving.  Spring Creeks have been pretty steady, but you have to really work those selective fish!

Hatches:

Yellowstone: you name it – Salmonflies, Golden Stones, Yellow Sallies, Mocha Caddis, Summer Caddis, Green Drakes & PMDs.

Spring Creeks: Midges in the morning and evening, PMD Spinners in the mornings/evenings and Adults between 9am and 2pm

Weather & Water Conditions:

Great weather, with some occasional afternoon thunderstorms. Always, Always bring your rain jacket and an extra warm layer!

Best Technique:

Yellowstone – Single big try flies in tight to the bank or on the softer seams.  Big bead heads in the right riffle corners are also producing some good fish.

Spring Creeks – 9 to 12 foot leaders to 6x with a morning PMD nymph rig dropped with a midge pupa or a PMD spinner,  then a single dry for the meat of the hatch.

Best Bugs:

Yellowstone – Mystery Meat Salmonfly (sz 6) or Chubby Chernobyl Golden Stone (sz 6-8) drop  a size 10 BH Prince in the right spots and you’ll also pick up some trout – but be careful the whitefish bite is epic on the upper river right now.

Spring Creeks – Slightly weighted Pheasant Tail (sz 18-20), Zebra midge (sz 20), PMD No Hackle (sz 16), Rusty Spinner (sz 18).

Missouri River Report 06/26/10

Summary:

It’s been just a stellar week here in Craig, Montana on the Missouri River working with Headhunters Fly Shop.  The fishing has been good to great overall this week even with the lack of dry flies.  We’ve got another 2 days up here and then it’s off to the Yellowstone River where the reports we are getting is that its about to start happening!

Hatches:

PMDs in the morning and some caddis in the afternoon – although the hatch was pretty weak yesterday.

Weather & Water Conditions:

As we mentioned the weather has been pretty much perfect.  If you’ve been following the blog at all you’ve probably seen that the river has dropped to 16,000 cfs, which is still big and there have been several sunken boats over the past 7 days!  If you come up be very careful of the strong eddie lines.

Best Technique:

There is really no dry fly action so its all nymphing. Your rig should be about 7 to 9 ft to the 3/0 split shot (big).  You have to find the softer water which is on the insides  or backs of the islands or the inside bend of the river.

Best Bugs:

You should be running the Brain Buster wire worm all day.  In the morning our best trailer fly was the Hot Head Scud or the Hot Head PMD nymph in a 14 or 16 size.  In the afternoon our best trailer was the same, but we also had luck on the beaded diving caddis.

Missouri River Report – 06/23/10

Summary:

It was probably the prettiest day in Montana this season and we were fortunate to guide with Headhunters Fly Shop in Craig, Montana.  Fishing was great though the dry fly action was lacking.

Hatches:

PMDs in the morning and some caddis in the afternoon.

Weather & Water Conditions:

As we mentioned the weather was perfect.  If you’ve been following the blog at all you’ve probably seen that the river is at 18,000 cfs, which is HUGE!  If you come up be very careful of the strong eddie lines.

Best Technique:

There is really no dry fly action so its all nymphing. Your rig should be 10-13 ft to the 3/0 split shot (big).  Oh yeah you better have a long handled net if you want to land any of the fish you hook!

Best Bugs:

You should be running the Brain Buster wire worm all day.  In the morning our best trailer fly was the Hot Head Scud or the Hot Head PMD nymph.  In the afternoon our best trailer was the Humpback Scud or the Cat Puke caddis emerger.