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).
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.
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.
Those of you planning an early July trip might just be in luck this year. The
Yellowstone River is dropping fast and starting to show signs of clearing up. The bottom appears to have dropped out of the
Lamar River which is currently running at 2,750 cfs and is one of the major sources of mud for the Yellowstone. The river in Livingston is running at 11,500 cfs, and the water is just starting to change from a dirty brown to a green hugh with about 4-6 inches of visibility. If this trend continues it has the makings for some good clear water
salmon fly action! Keep you fingers crossed and we’ll keep you updated.
River around Livingston, Montana
“What’s your favorite river to fish?” – probably the question we hear the most when guiding. You wanna know? Here you go:
- Yellowstone River – obviously, it’s our home river. We guide 120 miles of the longest freestone (un-dammed) river in the lower 48 States, how could you not love fishing that?
- Boulder River – this small rafting stream is a half raft trip half fishing adventure.
- Soda Butte Creek – this small little gem in Yellowstone National Park has huge Cutthroat that eat dry flies.
- Armstrong Spring Creek – one of the best sight fishing for big trout spring creek anywhere in the world!
- Smith River – walk/wading through the upper stretches of this small stream can produce some big brown trout.
- Lower Madison – OK we know it can be a bit weird to fish and it’s mostly nymphing or streamers, but this is the river where you’ve truly got a chance to catch a Montana trophy.
- Stillwater River – it’s a bit of a drive, but it’s a bigger version of the Boulder River and stays floatable through out the season.
- DePuy Spring Creek – with over 3 miles of spring creek and predictable hatches it’s another Paradise Valley gem.
- East Gallatin – we might get in trouble for this one with some of the locals, but it’s true. This tiny stream right by the Gallatin Airfield holds some huge trout which might be eating Trico’s in the morning and Hoppers in the afternoon.
- Missouri River – Alright it’s not really that close to Livingston, but we head up there every June for about a month and it’s one of our favorites because it doesn’t experience the major run-off like the majority of the rivers in our area. Oh yeah did we mention the huge trout.
What are your favorite Montana Rivers?
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.
