September 2011
Guided my friends Dudley and Sue for the Two Fly Event yesterday and it totally rocked. This is the Two Fly's first year as an event and fundraiser for the museum of the rockies and went off like a bang with an all-star group of guides and fly fisher folks. The guides competed in a casting contest to choose which floats they would do which was interesting considering the rod used for the competition was a 7' 000wt. The winner of the casting competition none other than my...
Spent the last two days fishing the giant spring creek tailwater of the Missouri with my Dad and had a blast. The mornings had some good trico action mostly closer to Holter dam and the afternoons still had some good fish eating tiny caddis, psuedos, and baetis. Got nothing on the hopper but by that point in the day we had pretty much commited to throwing streamers. Had a decent number of good sized trout eat sculpin and baitfish imitations and down low you had to fight...
Had the one day this whole Summer that both my Dad and I actually didn't have to work so we did some tough R&D work. Pretty relaxin day of throwing streamers and hoppers, pink ones to be exact. I have heard for years from guides and fisherman coming into the shop with that crazy look in their eyes asking if we have any pink hoppers left. For whatever reason they just have never produced for me....until this summer. Now they have become one of my go-to patterns...
Though the hopper fishing isn't as spectacular as it was a few weeks ago, the trout are still looking up for these big hunks of protein to stumble into the river. The fish in the pic above fell for a #10 pink Morrish Hopper in the middle of a riffle on the Yellowstone River. With the river as clear as it is, most of the larger fish are seeking shelter in the deeper water. So get away from that "beating the banks" thing and look to the dark stuff.
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The stone is fishing awesome still with a lot of good heads coming up to hoppers, mayflies, and attractors. The cold nights seem to slow things down in the morning but things get steady by 2pm and just get better and better til dark. Had a blast yesterday with clients Nick and Shelby bringing in three of Nick's biggest trout to date. The weather was perfect and saw one other boat on the water. Hot fly was the More-or-less Hopper yellow belly, the day before it was the...
Some real nice cloud cover and cool weather today around bozeman just screaming for big streamers to be thrown at big fish. The hopper bite is still going strong and a spent imitation would be good in this low light condition. I think the best bet for today would be to pick your favorite sculpin pattern tied off a piece of 12lb test and swing it, strip it, or dead drift it through river structures. Had to put up some interesting pics of good clients from the season which...