Bozeman Angler Blog
We now have shirts for fisherman, made by fly fisherman in Whitefish, MT. The Strip'n Flywear company was started by a fly fisherman in Whitefish because there was no places to buy a fly fishing lifestyle t-shirt. They have some clever designs, some of which have been featured on Moldychum! We have several to choose from, from a brown trouthouse to a james brown trout. Come on in and check the new designs!
The runoff is still in full swing, and with these few days of rain the creeks...
Fished the lower Madison yesterday for a few hours after work and found some great trout feeding on sculpins and nymphs. Had a few fish eat caddis and stonefly dries but not a lot of heads coming up in the rainy weather. One thing that i find myself doing every Spring is reorganizing my fishing gear in an effort to make my life easier. This year I decided i was tired of wasting time rigging rods at the boat ramp and sprung for a Rod Mount storage bracket for my truck....
Fished some more private lakes yesterday and found some bruiser rainbows and browns happy to eat a stripped leech. Had an awesome callibaetis hatch with some rising trout going after size 14 mayfly duns and emergers. Not a bad way to spend the day and to make things even better we headed over to the Rib n' Chop house in Livingston for the annual dirty water guide bash. Every year the fine folks at the RnC put on a party for guides/outfitters and fly shop employees. ...
Well yesterday i headed over the hill to see what the Yellowstone looked like and if i had checked the flows before i made the drive i would've seen that it had jumped 1,000cfs the day before. There is a few inches of visibilty but it looks pretty chocolate in color and not a ton of caddis, at least not as much as the Madison right now. So i decided to check out some private lakes. When the rivers get muddy i switch to a lot of stillwater fishing which is always a blast but...
Hit up the lower Madison yesterday and was greated by millions of caddis flying around. The fish weren't up on them until late afternoon but from about 4pm-8pm was lights out awesome dry fly fishing. Most fish we found were up near the banks, as were the caddis. Darker colored caddis worked the best but the fish get pretty silly when this hatch gets in full swing and will eat just about anything. Gonna float the Yellowstone today and enjoy the fluttering bugs before...
There has been some great dry fly activity on our local waters lately with the big brown mayflies. We're talking about march browns and it is a very fun hatch to be a part of after months of fishing size 20 midge and baetis patterns to pitch a size 12 or 14 mayfly at rising trout. Also been some good activity subsurface with brown trout eating streamers and nymphs. With this cooler weather steadily holding back the runoff for now it is a great time to take advantage of some...
Just got back the other day from a couple weeks of walking the flats stalking bonefish on Long Island, Bahamas. Had a great time this year and continue to learn more and more about saltwater fly fishing and it's addictive qualities. A few of my new discoveries this year had to do with different gear options, different approaches, and fly selection. As far as the gear goes i tried a few different sized rods besides the standard 9' 8wt., which still remains the most versatile...
Hank Patterson the self proclaimed world's best fly fishing guide and youtube star will be at the Bozeman Angler this Saturday April 27th from 9:30-11:30am doing a meet and greet and DVD signing. Hank is in town to do some enlightening talks at the Simms Ice Out event this weekend and will be at the Bozeman Angler for an open to the public free event. If you haven't checked out any of his videos poking fun at how serious many guides and anglers take themselves it is pretty...
Had the chance to scoot out to the Gallatin while it wasn't snowing and windy and had a great time! The rainbows were out and eating lightning bugs and stoneflies. With warmer days in the forecast, get out and fish before the snow melts! Pretty soon it will high muddy water. Havent seen any yet, but soon there should be some caddis flies in the air, so get stocked up on elk hairs and caddis pupa!
Just a quick report before I run out the door. Yesterday I floated the Yellowstone with hopes of finding trout eating beatis in the back waters and eddies, but the sun quickly snuffed that idea out. So it...
Today I took my trout starved wife, Sarah, to the Madison for a few hours of fishing in the Varney bridge area. After being on the water for an hour or so, Sarah rolled a rock and found a good half dozen small stoneflys and one large one. Sure enough, a little brown rubber leg was the ticket to fooling several nice sized fish. Spring is here and the trout are...
Yesterday I took Mary Seed and her son Miles to the lower Madison for my first guide trip of the 2013 season. Miles caught his fist fish on the fly on his third cast of the day. Not a bad way to start the season. But the lower being the sensitive stretch of river that it is, the fishing slowed down when the sun popped out an hour or two after putting in. That's when the guessing game of "what fly will the eat now" began. I found no consistency in what they would take. We...
The trout are getting aggressive towards the color pink this time of year and should just get better until spring time when we start chasing the early caddis, skwala, and baetis hatches. For now pink is king for numerous hookups. The streamer bite is slow to mediocre but sometimes that one tug is what makes an entire day of pitching the 7wt. seem worth it. Hit up the missouri again last week and found a lot of fat rainbows eager to eat the pink and red soft hackled nymphs....
The Downtown Bozeman Association and downtown merchants are proud to present the 2013 Winter Crazy Days Downtown Winter Clearance Sale! It’s the best winter sale in Bozeman! The Downtown Winter Crazy Days is during general retail business hours on Friday, March 1 through Sunday, March 3. Park once and visit over 200 downtown merchants that have unbelievable sales of winter merchandise to get their store ready for their new spring lines. ...
Winter time is play time in Montana and the fishing continues to be great this February. Fished the Missouri yesterday with a group of local fly fishers who have the same icy angling affliction. We found a good number of hefty rainbows taking nymphs all day long which kept things entertaining. We had thick cloud cover all day and lots of midges on the water but not many trout feeding on the surface. I can't really blame them for not wanting to swim all the way to the...
The downtown Winter Crazy days is right around the corner and wanted to give all you trout bums a heads up on a chance to get some great gear at CRAZY prices. March 1st-2nd the Bozeman Angler will have some great deals on everything from flies to clothing. Hope to see you there!
The Trout Unlimited banquet was a really fun time last night! Mostly for me it is a great time to get to see all the great people that work in the fly fishing industry. Be them guides, shop...
Headed to the annual Madison-Gallatin chapter's Trout Unlimited banquet tonight for some fundraising on protecting the best sport and past time in the world FLY FISHING! TU really does a great job for the trout waters near and far so we do our best to donate and support to the organization. I will let you know tomorrow if i get tipsy and bid on an heirloom bamboo rod or a trip to the Seychelles during the silent auction. Maybe i'll get lucky and win something! Gotta...
Headed back to the Madison today and found just about as good of fishing weather as you can ask for in February. Last night the forecast called for wind and snow and it was even a little breezy in town this morning but once i got to the river there was thick cloud cover and barely a breath of wind. For those of you who live and fish around the area in the winter you can understand how amazing this is because usually if it's breezy in Bozeman it is a cranking wind tunnel coming...
Spent the day swinging big flies in the wind on the lower madison today. No big fish on the big streamers so i switched over to the indicator rig in the afternoon and the bright pink nymph rig reigned supreme. Found a hanful of rainbows that were surprisingly fiesty despite the cold weather. Most trout were stacked up in their typical slow water holding area for the winter but i did spook one larger rainbow just hanging out in the choppy shallow water like they tend to do...
Started my monday off with this rats nest from spooling up a reel so i think it's a sign i really need to get out and fish. Have you ever had to untangle 100 yards of backing from a mono core streamer express fly line? It ain't fun at all. I have the day off tomorrow so i might head out to either the Madison or Missouri and see what i can find. I have been spending a lot of my time this year swinging streamers with a switch rod but i may just have to get dirty and...