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.

Armstrong’s Spring Creek Fishing Report – 06/13/10

Summary:
Armstrong spring creek fished very well yesterday as midges and PMDs were hatching.  It’s pretty rare to have the entire creek to yourself, but that’s exactly what we had – bonus! Fortunately the weather and fish were both in a cooperative mood.

Hatches:
There was a solid midge hatch in the morning and then PMDs around 10 am, which have just started to trickle off.  Look for those PMDs to really start going by this coming weekend.

Best Technique:
Nymphing with small emergers and nymphs was most productive, but they did see a few trout sipping Pale Morning Duns in the flats.  Their nymph rig was about 2.5 to 3 feet long with a small Palsa Pinch-on for a strike indicator.

Weather & Water Conditions:
Weather was one of the prettiest days of the year so far – 60 degrees, sunny and light winds from the West.  As always with the spring creeks the water was in pristine condition.

Best Bugs:
The Zebra midge in a size 18-20 was most productive, unweighted Pheasant Tails and PMD Splitcase Nymphs in size 14-16, and PMD CDC emergers size 12-14.

River’s are Blown, But Lakes are Great – 06/11/10

The Yellowstone and surrounding rivers are at peak run-off, but there is still great fishing to be had on some private lakes!

Today we were out with Matson Rodgers’ Anglers West Fly Shop.  A group of 50 great Aussie’s were celebrating one of the groups 50th birthday.  Celebrating in style we might add – two days in Las Vegas, private jet to Montana and staying at Mountain Sky Guest Ranch complete with horseback riding, catered outdoor dinners, music, fly fishing, white water rafting and supposedly more to come in the next couple days.  Anyway a great group of folks who braved the unseasonably cool weather – yeah that’s fresh snow in the mountains over Zach’s shoulder!

Summary:
We were one of 12 boats scattered to one of the many private lakes in Paradise Valley for the morning.  Eric Adams and fellow guide Zach Pleshar hit the lower lake at Story Ranch and in 2 hours caught about a dozen trout and missed numerous others.  We caught several rainbows from 12 inches to 19 inches and even 2 Brook trout between 16 & 18 inches.

Best Technique:
Nymphing was the best course of action for the day with two relatively novice anglers, but there were trout rising on small Callibaetis adults and would likely have been effective.  Our nymph rig was 2 to 4 feet in depth.

Weather & Water Conditions:
Cold, snowy and rainy – yes it’s June in Montana! Air temps were in the lower 50’s and water was about the same.  We are seriously ready for some flip-flop weather!

Best Bugs:
As there were a few Callibaetis on the water we immediately tied on Trina’s Bubble Back emerger in size 12-14.  I don’t know about Zach, but that’s the only fly I tied on all morning, with good results.

If you’re interested in learning more about some of the private lakes in the Paradise Valley please contact us.