Drake Days : Summertime Rolls

Summer Solstice has come in Montana. A brief pause cosmic in our parabola through the fishing season. A change of weather from blustery rain-logged mornings to the high cloudless heat of July, and a change in hatches to go along with it. Fishing remains the same: consistent, sometimes very good sometimes spectacular. Old and young, novice and expert alike are putting the wood to some very nice trout lately on the Bitterroot and Blackfoot. Salmonflies are still very much a thing on the Blackfoot canyon as the traffic and fish tales can attest. Keep the orange #4's on for a little while longer. Around the lower Root' there are stirrings of another famous hatch but of the sleeker mayfly persuasion. Green Drakes on the menu and the fish are loving it!

Why do Mayflies stir the flyfisher soul as they do? Why do we long for the bewitching hour of mid-day for the first sings of an emergence? Sure the stoneflies have their adherents (myself being one of them of course) but stately mayfly sailboats drifting down to eager trout is what summer dreams are made of. The PMD's are here of course, as they are state-wide right now, but intermixed are the big bugs : Two, three, four at a time in a particular run then not for a mile. I imagine Green Drakes to think they are F16's but find out the hard that they handle more like Sikorsky heliocopters. Barely holding it together with the whole flying thing they find their way into the water often and the fish take notice. Flicking the big mayfly can pay large dividends even without seeing lots of them. The fish know. They know.. . .


Recipe for BRG Green Drake :

Tiemco 100, #10
Olive Dun Uni
Wing : Nat' Elk Hair wing, tied parachute or thorax
Tail : Moose Mane dyed drk. Brown
Body : 1/2 haresear , 1/2 med. olive (both MT Fly Co.)
Hackle : Grizzly, and lots to float this damm giant thing

And Now, Let There Be Rock

Fathers Day Fishing Report

Today is Fathers Day. We Marauders are all taking a day off the river this fine Sunday to gather for some BBQ-ing, golf watching, and long overdue family time. Summer Solstice and full moon happening tomorrow which makes this seem like an appropriate time to pause and reflect on the important things. Family. Freedom. Flyfishing. These days getting the Dads out on the boat is reserved more and more for preseason bundled-up missions down the low river looking for the first dry fly eat of the year. Summertime funtime sandel floats are a rare event that we can manage to pull off only occasionally. This year we pulled off one such mid June half-day shot through the town stretch, throwing a grill and a few Rainbows down to mark the seasonal turn into summer. We had a great roll yesterday with the old men showing us how its done with a bunch of nice fish eating on top. Next fathers day will include a stop at Hamilton golf course for good measure. It is Open week after all and the golfing and flyfishing persuasion is really one in the same.

(U.S. Open Bulletin : My money is riding on a late come-from-behind win for Dustin Johnson)

Dryfly Primetime Reduex
Basic "what to expect" report is as follows. Big dry flies continue to be the float-fishing ammo of choice. BUT. When there are pods take that damm foam floaty thing off and flick an imitative sneaky mayfly at them. Pretend you're a predator, not just a be-speckled rod waver.  The Pale Morning Dun is the ruler of the early summer trout diet and our afternoon hatches have been very good this year. Anything yellow in a # 14 should get the job done, nothing to techie this early in the year for us. Sleeper bite in the afternoons is the smaller Bitterroot Goldens. Fish a #10 or #12 down-wing pattern (foam, trude, parachute, etc.) as a searching fly when the fish don't seem to be keyed on anything in particular. There are a lot of these bugs flying around this year and the fish chew them with conviction, more so (I feel) even than their larger and more famous Californica cousins. Its godamm gorgeous out there right now, all the Stones' are out rolling in droves right now, bring your best flybox and find the daily favorite!

Bitterroot Dryfly Primetime

Summer time is rolling toward western MT fisheries faster by the day. Rivers are still pretty full but my oh my this is when I want to be out on it. Don't wait until the tap is nearly dry and every weekend party floater thinks its time to hit your area river : GET OUT ON IT NOW.

The Bitterroot and Big Hole are both holding at or below the 25th percentile historically which means they are about as prime as you will ever see. Juicy mid-summer flows right now, fish are not quite moved to the hard sides but they will be holding there soon. How long will our snow hold out this year? Hard to say. Our snowpack is low but overall precipitation is right on average: We have been getting our moisture in rain instead of snow this year and we are hoping it holds up. It is pouring outside the farmhouse as I write this and the rest of the week looks to be the same conditions. (Green Drakes ??? ) Optimism reigns supreme for me based on our cool spring so far, way wetter and lower temps then we had same time last season. Keeping the faith that the clouds will come and the fish will bite is good medicine for any fish junkie.

Fishing on the Bitterroot has been good to quite good the last week on the surface. Big dryflies have been effective from first cast to last, or until the fish give up eating because they are just too damm stuffed with stoneflies to eat another bite. This time of year minimal mending is necessary : Takes are so aggressive that as soon as the fly hits some pockets its is assaulted by a ravenous Rainbow. Or Cutthroat. Or even a giant Brownie here are there. This time of year (Disclaimer : Guide Rambling To Follow!) I feel I see more big Browns on the upper river than any other time of year. Big low-river fish pushing upstream to pack themselves full of giant Salmonbugs before sulking out a summer being little finicky buggers. Just some campfire talk to throw around at the next backyard BBQ.

As for the Salmonflies . Salmonflies, Salmonflies, Salmonflies.

They are still here despite what some recent rumors would suggest. Although this hatch does move upstream like wildfire, peaking in just a matter of days and then subsiding, there are still enough of the bright orange critters in the bushes to be a prime trout snack. Hitting a Salmonfly hatch right is a hard proposition, one which takes many folks a few trips out to western Montana to finally see in all its glory. Or you just back right into the best hatch in years thanks to lower-tha-average-runoff flows and you're ruined forever. I have had some of the best dry fly days I can remember within the last week. That hot-as-bacon-sizzling-castiron doesn't last forever on the big bug but there are options. Like throwing a Salmonfly a size smaller than all the rest of the trout-hunters are throwing. There are baby Slamonflies out there and the trout eat them just as readily. Instead of the whopper #4's dial it back to an #8 Rouge and sling it bank side. There's plenty more fish to fall on the Salmon before the rest of summers hatches hit us. Hit it this week hard and hold on.

Big Hole Magic 2016

First post in awhile for this blog and wouldn’t ya know it right before the season really takes off on us and free-time for blogging becomes a fond memory. This past month has found Chris and I in Wise River, MT guiding the Big Hole more than in previous years. This time of year it is all about riding the rain pushes and hunting big browns into the braids and side channels. Seven weights in hand and looking for just that right speed of gushy inside corner water. Email and phone calls take a week off as there ain’t no service when you’re on Divide time. Big Hole valley Montana is where I want to be, without question one of the most scenic rivers in the state and coincidently home to some very large fish as well.

The month started off guiding groups of wounded warriors from The Complete Flyfisher. Always awesome taking these guys out on the river, getting them into a few fish while enjoying the camaraderie and awesome setting of lodge life. I got to fish with Jeff and Tim for the week, Marines and Montana resident fishing friends who get out together as often as possible. A nice dry fly fish got our week off on the right foot, coming to eat off a sunk island point and going immediately air born. When all other options are exhausted why not try flying, right? Rain in the Pioneer Mountains bumped up the river flows but nymphing stayed consistent fort us, lots of action underneath and a few real quality fish. Good times the wilds of Wise River,  looking forward to hearing from these guys over a summer worth of trips throughout Montana.

Capping a very rainy May was our annual college reunion trip, rounding out a solid month of Big Hole Magic. Last week saw the annual gathering of UofM Aber Hall alums circa 2008. Some of these brothers we get to fish with on a regular basis around Missoula and Bitterroot valleys, others this is the one trip that we all make happen year in and year out. Coming all the way from Oregon Trent and Brandon got their share of Browns and Wise River Club hospitality to boot: When in the middle of nowhere, make mine a double. Brandon caught one of the fish of the trip just before a looming storm pushed us for the ramp. East side means wind and boy did we get some of it. Trent brought some sweet browns to the net and tagged himself solidly in the nose with a fly in said wind, putting our stream-side medical skills to the test. Nothing a little whiskey can’t cure, if the settlers made it out here I'm sure we can handle this! Speaking of whiskey, there are no photos of the bottle pile we built over three nights of partying and camping but you can all imagine: Fishing guides are known for elephant-like memories of every fish they've ever caught and iron guts to to handle the firewater to boot. We got through five bottles in three days, a respectable clip for any group of dedicated trout hounds. 

New man for this trip Andy “Rumplemintz” Remple came correct and had a hell of a weekend. Sleeping under just a tarp in May is the kind of give-no-f’s fishing attitude the trout over here seem to respect. A bunch of great fish came to net for Andy and he opened his Big Hole account in fashion on day one, dredging up a beauty right out of the gates from a boiling boulder garden. Same shirt different day, the western red flannel never gets old and made its way into quite a few pics. Seeing the Big Hole in good form makes you a die-hard believer that even on the slower days a great Brownie is lurking just around the next bush. Andy will be back for more next season with fish and dedication like that. 

We will be at it hard in the Bitterroot for the next few weeks, dryflies popping hard and the bulk of our summer guide calendars hitting right about now. Love for the Big Hole will come in streaks as we take the random client boat over the pass for a shot at a monster Brown. Never a bad time on the east side of Chief Joseph , a great valley filled with the people and trout that I love seeing. For our own fun fishing that great river will have to wait until next May.

Big Hole magic waiting in the wings.

Fish awnnnn!!

Spring Training Is Over : Game On Trout On

April has finally arrived and is bringing with it all kinds of good things. The first casts of the season are well behind us and some seemingly lost fishing sense has returned to hands on cork grips everywhere. Missoula area rivers have been swarming with trailers and driftboats the last few weeks as whispers of everybody's favorite non-swearing "s" word have filtered through media and flyshops:

"Skwala dries moving around today"
"Got em on the Skwalers big time yesterday afternoon!"
 "Put that Skwala in yer pipe and smoke it".

It doesn't take much rumoring for "The Hatch" to hit fever pitch and we all want a piece of the action. Fishing has been good and there's nothing like a good dryfly bite to keep you out there through snow squalls and downpours alike. The weather this Skwala season has reminded me of years past with brief windows of awesome fishing surrounded by all the types of inclement weather you can imagine. If you're not wearing your rainjacket, you should be. It's good luck, and it's often necessary. And the fish can tell.

With calendars filling in fast for summer guiding throughout the state it makes these leisurely spring days a welcomed time. A few pro days to kick off the year, sure, but the mania and 20-day-straight stretches of summertime are still long in the future. We can afford to post on sporadic surface feeders and take the boats out at dusk without fear of missing the deli to get tomorrows lunch. Fly boxes are at maximum capacity, brimming with ammo for the upcoming long hauls across the state. Basically, its preseason and this years team is looking gooooooood. . . . .

Our past week of warm summery weather will put a temporary freeze on that super spring top water action : Rivers swelling with the first flush of mid elevation snowmelt never make trout happy having just barely woken up from a cold winter siesta. This first mini runoff bump is actually one of my favorite cues that big trout season is right around the corner. No other time of year yields as many big shouldered fish as this in-between season of short rising and falling water levels to push the big boys around and get them chomping. Is it spring? Is it runoff? Will there be any fish had at all?? I have learned it pays to be out there now and finding those few fish that the Skwala craze just grazed and didn't hit, something large and hungry and ready for a minnow.



Summertime on my mind. Also, Tacocat !

On your mark, Get Set, Go!

 

                For those of us that have a 9-5 and actually work for a living the several months leading up to spring go by painstakingly slow.  My winter weekends have been filled with wrestling tournaments and 7th grade research papers.  I have been tortured by stories of my fly fishing brothers who have spent their winter swinging for steel in far off waters of British Columbia and Idaho.  It seems like forever since I have felt the touch of cork in my hands.  I did manage to do some water fowling this last fall and winter and even managed to put some venison in the freezer and help my son Bridger bag his first buck. However it is moving water and the metronome cadence of the cast that gets my blood pumping and I have been seriously plagued with low blood pressure as of late. 

 

              

 

 

 

 

 

 

  So my self-prescribed therapy for this long winter has been to read fly fishing blogs, and fishing reports on waters around the country and the globe, and goal setting for the upcoming season. This season, I will see that new water, and leave the bobber at home. “Stay on top Chad It’s dry or die!” “what a fantasy that is.” During the evenings I would sit at my tying bench and crank out the myriad of flies I will need for the upcoming guide season, cleaned lines, and repaired waders, organized fly boxes, tweeked my raft, repaired the boat trailer and made wish lists of things needed for this upcoming season. Emails and text messages with my fishing pals have centered on upcoming trips, especially the annual fish camp that is coming in April on the “MO” and the need to spend more days on the Beaverhead and Bighole rivers. Daydreaming of the hatches to come and the rising trout that will take the flies I have created.

  

But oh so soon the annual spring skwala hatch will begin on My home water the Bitterroot river and of course as of this writing I have three more weekends of wrestling tournaments, a huge research project that my seventh graders must turn in and I have to correct which just happens to coincide with the early fly-fishing season.  Oh ya I also have an 8th grade field trip to Washington D.C. I wonder if you can catch anything with a fly on the Potomac River in March.  Ugggg it’s so hard to stay focused on correcting papers and the young wrestlers that I coach when things are about to start happening on the river  The weather is so damn nice and the temperature is creeping up every day fueling my passion for the selfish mistress that is the river.

So to the bench I go with a glass of Jim Bean and an idea for what has to be the next greatest mayfly pattern.  I will tie a couple dozen more of these flies and hopefully connect the dots real soon.  I need the chilly waters and eager take of a reckless trout.  I want to feel the sun on my back and the familiar ache in my shoulders of pulling oars.  I look forward to shuttles, and the morning weather reports and water levels on my favorite rivers.  The evenings at the brewery with a pint of my favorite IPA swapping stories with the boys about how good or bad the day was and how our client’s did.  Yes I can feel my blood pressure rising and it is a good thing.  On your mark, Get set, Go!

 

 

A Perfect Year In Montana : A Guides Trip Planner

*the following is a work of opinion, farce, and prognostication. It is intended to be taken with utmost seriousness and intended for the private use of our fishing-adled audience only*

Mid winter isn't all that bad. Skiing is fun and gets some minimum amount of physical activity in. The downtime to tie flies and pick away at the ever-expanding reading list is also an important part of the fishing bum seasonal lifestyle : All that Duncan isn't going to read itself goshdangit. And most importantly it offers the chance to plan a seasons worth of fishing trips across the state ( and maybe the world??), weighting options and piecing together the perfect 12 months of fishing experiences. I try to get after something I've never done before each season, whether is be species, river, or season, and with the every-increasing number of rivers fished this becomes a harder and harder challenge. 

Having lived in Montana plying its fishy rivers for the last twelve years I have developed some hunches. Call it "hunch development" as to when and where to be in the state for best results. Granted these hunches are often informed by one specific year that my boys and I stumbled into a suicide bite of one kind or another. Still once the memory is there and the draw is very real and makes you think very serously about going back and trying to recapture that moment once again. So without much order or editing here's a rough list of our favorite stops throughout Montana and the time of year we most enjoy fishing and guiding them. Dream on .

Spring : Bitterroot 

Spring comes earlier ever year it seems and that is not something that you will hear me complaining about.  After the long dark days of a winter in the valley the thought of hunting sipping trout on a sunny afternoon seems like the greatest thing you could ask for. By the middle of March and rolling into April we see the first chances of legitimate afternoon dry fly fishing. The Bitterroot is my favorite spring fishery and has the best Skwala hatch around : Long considered a "guide only" season due to erratic weather and fishing conditions, the cat is out of the bag and now lots of folks know how good this hatch can be. Its a gamblers game for sure, tshirts one day and parkas the next is the halmark of Montana spring. But if you are down for the unreliable weather it doesn't take much for this to be the bonanza kickoff party to the fishing season. A week of warm afternoons and the back eddies will have these olive kickers out in numbers with large (large) trout hunting them. Similar in many ways to Rock Creek we get a lot of spring sunshine to help get our fish moving and once they see the first helpless struggling stonefly of the year they are on it like ham on any kind of bread.

Although the lower river sees most of the pressure this time of year the entire Bitterroot can fish well. We usually stick to our favorite upstream water and prospect away with dry and dropper. Some of my favorite flyfishing memories from college days happened during Skwala season, half-day classes giving way to lazy afternoons looking for risers. A big Rainbow slurping a dryfly anywhere this time of year is a heart-stopping moment. I still hold this season near & dear and get out whenever I can. If you've got any interest in seeing what spring fishing in Montana has to offer this is the time, and this is the river.

Runner Up : Clark Fork

Early Summer : Big Hole

Hands down the place I want to be for the first giant brown trout of the year is on the Big Hole. No other piece of water in Montana catches my eye like the slowdown inside chop of a riffle near Maiden Rock. And when the possibility of a monster brownie is lurking behind every other rock m tree and stump, I fish with double conviction at every opportunity I get. 

I set my calendar to arrive somewhere near Wise River in May. The high water part of the year is the bane to many rivers throughout the state but not at all to the Big Hole : The BH gets high and a little off-color,  yes, but never ever gets truly Muddy. The sludge that Missoula-area rivers have to contend with is a non-factor over here, and the browns (like the good predators that they are) love the extra cover. If you want to spend the runoff season on a freestone and not a tailwater the BH is your play. Expect to throw big streamers to every bank and sit and nymph the bottom out of everything else. You will be rewarded over here, its just a matter of when and how big. The Big Boys come out to play this time of year no question, with so many of these giant fish hitting the net in 14' that the nickname "Jurassic Park" rightfully took hold.  And then there is the Salmonfly hatch to end all Salmonfly hatches. Truly the river that made this hatch what it is know as today the Big Hole generates these bugs by the millions. Being here early (i.e. pre hatch) is key, cuz the big fish only need to eat the first hundred or so they see then its all over til mañana. By the middle of May the hushed voices around fireside are all predicting the first epic day of "THE hatch". You gotta be here to appreciate this river during high water and the insanity that is a Salmonfly grab. Bucket list year for everybody!

Runner Up : Missouri

Summer : Bitterroot

Not to be a homer or anything, but the Bitterroot for me wins the summer season hands down. Dry flies baby, dry flies. No other river has as consistent dry fly action at the Root'. None. Period. The combination of diverse hatches throughout our river system, multiple trout species chugging dry flies with reckless abandon, and the miles of eye-dropping scenery and you have the complete package: The quintessential Montana flyfishing river. I've seen a lot of Montana so far and no other river has called me quite like this one has. Fish with confidence and leave the bobbers at home : Summertime in the valley is a very very good time.

We are truly blessed by our hydrology, cold West Fork headwaters and tributaries to go along with a massive amount of low valley subsurface recharge. We stay cool in the summer when other rivers are heating up, have all the trout species in whopper sizes, lower number of anglers than other famous flyfishing rivers, and list of fishable hatches is longer then a 20-incher: Green / Gray / Brown Drakes, Goldenstones, Salmonflies, Flavelenias, PMD's, Hecubas, Hoppers out the whazoo, and some Tricos and BWO's to round it all out. You gotta spend a year here to truly appreciate this rivers' diversity.

And the Cutties, oh the Cutties. God bless their little aggressive hearts .

Runner Up : Again, the Clark Fork

Fall : Missouri 

After a long summer hunting said Cutthroats throughout the Bitterroot valley my mind very quickly turns north : Craiglandia and the fabled Mighty Missouri River. Although the BRG crew take clients over to the Mo' periodically over the summer it is the autumn season that really shines on this river. The Blue Wing Olive hatches are truly world class Rainbow freakout events that even us exhausted guides want a piece of. Nothing like a 30-plus fish pod nosing up to flotillas of mayflies to get the blood pumping. So much water out here that everybody can find their own fish and catch to their hearts content. Add to that a building streamer bite as the brown spawn approaches and you have a real winner.

The fall fishing is so good over here that we have made the Mo' our destination for the annual end-of-season birthday fishing bash : For when you just haven't caught enough stinking fish in a guide season. Pods slurping with such lacksidasical confidence that the muttering of "why you smug little bastard" is the opening war whoop on nearly every riser. You don't rise down n' across from me at 30' and get away with it . Fish awwwwn!!!

Runner Up : None, the Mo' is the only one.