Dave Goff with a beautiful Brown
Wow! What a beautiful couple of days we’ve had in the past few days. When it’s warm this time of year AND the wind doesn’t blow upwards of 15 mph that’s a great day to go fishing around Livingston, Montana.
There’s not a whole lot of insect activity right now, but there are some midges in the afternoon, a few random baetis, and every once in a while you see those tiny black stone flies crawling long the snowy banks.
Regardless, of the insect activity the water is a balmy 39 degrees and flowing at 1,160 cfs so a small pheasant tail (sz 16-20) and a zebra midge dropper (sz 16-20) is a good nymph rig. You won’t have to go too deep as the water is low, plus you’ll want to concentrate on the inside riffle corners, side channels and tail outs of the pools. We’ve also been picking up a few nice Rainbows on white streamers dragged slowly off the banks.
http://www.montanaflyfishingguides.com/Movies/MontanaFlyFishingTrips2Web.flvIt’s been a lamb of a start to March so far in Montana so we’ve already started hitting the water. Our most recent fishing expedition was a dual mission. Most obvious with the overcast weather, good fishing reports and mostly light wind we wanted to get up to the Missouri and visit our friends at Headhunters trout shop and do some fishing. Eric Adams and Tony V. did a mid day float from Wolf Creek to Craig. We fished a variety of nymphs and midge pupa under the surface, but we really wanted to get a few fish on the dry fly – so looking for rising trout was the goal. About 3:30pm the winds were light and the midges started hatching. We found a nice long flat where the heads started rising with some consistency and were able to pick off a few fish on the black posted Griffith’s Gnat and a couple on the bead headed Zebra midge. Not a stellar day on the mighty Missouri River, but dry fly fishing in March in Montana is something special.
Our second mission was to row a new drift boat by Adipose Boat Works. We’ve been talking with these boys about a modified skiff for a couple years now and we are getting excited to get into the full production model this spring. We’ll keep you updated on the progress and features and we can’t wait for our fishing guest to see how functional and comfortable this boat is.
Well it’s been cold here in Montana and we thought since most of you don’t get out here much in the winter you’d like to see what the river looks like this time of year. As you can see it’s partially frozen, but the trout are hunkered down awaiting warmer days. While we love all the activities our snowy weather offers we are anxious for spring fishing to return. We’ll update you after the New Year on our current snow pack conditions. Talk to you soon. www.MontanaFlyFishingGuides.com
Well it’s a couple days late, but we guided some great folks from the Bozeman area the day before Thanksgiving on DePuy’s spring creek – thanks to Sweetwater Fly Shop. It was a beautiful sunny day and about 50 degrees. The biggest bonus was very little wind, which is something special on a warm winter day to be sure. There were midges and some Baetis (blue wing olives), but not a strong hatch. It would have been a better hatch with a few more clouds, but we managed. We saw several brown trout redds, but didn’t see any fish on them.
We fished mostly subsurface with small midge pupa’s and Baetis emergers. Our window of opportunity was very short, but best between noon and 2pm. We managed to hook a nice brown and rainbow, but they both won the short lived battle.
That will probably be the last time we are out on the water for this season, but you never know with the variable Montana weather. We’ll be sure to update you if we get out again. We will however be updating all of our subscribers on the snow pack throughout the winter season – we might even throw in a few ski pictures!
If you haven’t heard we’ve gotten plenty of snow in the past couple weeks. Winter is off to a great start here in our part of Montana, hopefully it will continue. As of today our Montana snow pack is over 120% ! Lot’s of snow means plenty of cool water for our trout in the summer time. Keep it coming.
Here’s the link if you want to check it out yourself.
Thanks to everyone from Montana Fly Fishing Guides! We had a great 2009 season despite the tougher economic times. Many of our guests were able to experience some of the best summer fishing in recent memory, particularly on the Yellowstone River. In fact one of our guides jokingly mentioned that he only tied on one hopper for about 6 straight weeks! A glorious hopper season for sure.
The early Fall was a bit more difficult. Warm weather and sunny skies didn’t agree with most of our Fall hatches, but we still managed to find some good fishing for those willing to get down and dirty with streamers and big nymphs. The afternoons were productive with small emergers and dries.
The abundant water and cool temperatures made for healthy trout. We are excited for next season and we hope you are too.
