5-20 The Missouri River

Just can't get enough of the Missouri right now and since the yellowstone is up to 7500 cfs i accepted my dad's offer to go fish caddis on the mo with no hesitation at all.  Well we didn't end up seeing many caddis but there were a few small grey baetis and lots of midges on top with some heads coming up but for us the real hot action came from nymphing.  The flies of the day being black or olive micro may size 18-20 (I would cry if this bug was not in my fly box), BA's grey emerger size 16, and soft hackle pheseant tails size 16.  The weather was cold, cloudy, and some rain in the first part of the day which was great for baetis but by 1pm the sun came out.  We found a half dozen baetis nymphs crawling on our waders every time we got out of the water so nymphing made perfect sense.  Since the Dearborn is dumping some mud we floated from Craig and took out at Stickney and had great visibility the whole way.  By the end of the day we had each pulled in a dozen fish from 17"-22" mostly those big badass rainbows that make the missouri so special, but a few beautiful brown trout gave us some nice high octane fights as well. The flow below holter dam is still at 4300 cfs so unless wonderful cutthroat fishing at hyalite is better for your time frame, get up early and make the drive to the Missouri, Upper Madison or The Big Hole all are a great escape from bozeman area runoffs.

Peter

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