bozemanangler's blog

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 shifting out of their winter habits.

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.

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.

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.  Come stroll downtown and check out Downtown Winter Crazy Days and don’t forget FREE 2-hour parking in th

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.

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!

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 love TU banquet night.

Peter

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 out of Bear Trap Canyon.

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 in the Summer.

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 fish the bright funky worm and egg patterns that are working so good right now.  Some purists will