Saturday, May 03, 2008

Spring Fever





























The last couple weeks in April are usually terrific around SW Montana with nice days, cold nights, and feeding fish. The past 3 weeks, however, have been cold, snowy, windy, warm, cold, snowy...etc. You get the picture. Fishing, however, has been good through it all. I've been on the Madison and Yellowstone a good amount the last couple weeks and everything has been good except the lower Madison.

Not sure why the lower has been slower, but it has. We've still been geting some fish, but have had to work at it pretty hard. I think it has something to do with the Rainbows being pretty serious about spawning right now and expect that things will pick up once there are more bugs than eggs in the water. This should be pretty soon as the Caddis should be popping anyday now.

Erratic water temps, flows, and color has kept the Caddiso from coming off on the stone as well, but I bet they get going the next day or two. This is looking promising for some upcoming trips. Overall, the last couple weeks on the stone has been good so long as the weather is stable and not ridiculously windy. 

I've been fishing it around Big Timber for the most part and have found the Pat's Rubberleg Golden Stone that we're selling (it's a custom tie) has been getting them real good. There are some March Browns out and Baetis as well, so The seemed to get on some larger PT's and Lightning Bugs more towrds mid-day. After that bite quit, usually 3 or 4 in the afternnon, a Bow River Bugger with a worm dropper still found some fish. Not crazy fishing, but still 20+ nice fish. Some guys have been working streamers pretty hard and finding some big fish all through the river, you won't get numbers right now, but might find that big one of the year.

The upper madison is still at low flows, but it's been reall good. I've been fishing a lot of egg and wrom combos and finding lots of fish in the buckets between Varney and Ennis. A big wire worm has been very easy to fish and more effective than not. That's all I'll say about this!

I've been fishing with a Helios 905 all year and I can't say enough good things about this rod. Everyone that I've had fish it has been really impressed and has fished better than with their other rods. This just tells me that it fishes as easy for less experienced casters as it does for those experts. Bottom line - it's an awesome rod. 

The other new gear that I've been getting on with as well is the new Orvis Large Arbor. Really lightweight and smooth. I'd take it over a Galvan or Ross anyday. 

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