Summer is Almost Gone

The last few months have flown buy! It seems like a few days ago I was hoping ot hit the Salmonflies and now I'm waiting for fall Green Drakes. I've been all around the last couple of weeks and fishing has been consistent and good, just about everywhere,

The Upper Madison is startting ot fish like it should, the Yelowstone has been solid, the Lm is fishing well still, and the Galltin has been good too. Thanks to plenty of spring snow, a mild summer, and a little rain here and there, we;ve now had two good summers of water.

So, i'm pooped out, but fishing has been gooder better than badders!

Hoppers and Midnight Stones

Back in the spring, I don't remember when exactly, I heard a report on the radio that was calling for a hopper plague. It turns out to be true and I've heard that there has been some serious crop damages around the state. One report made note of slick roads because of the hopper numbers. Needless to say, fishing with hopper patterns has been good. Hopper fishing is always fun and this year has been really good so far.

I've had great dry fly fish on the Lower Mad, Yellowstone, and Jeff in the last week with one really windy crappy day on the UM one of those days. The Upper just hasn't been fishing as well this years as years past. I think the biggest reason has to do with a lack of Golden Stones on the banks. Not to say that the fish aren't there or aren't eating, it's just not nearly as easy when they're not on the stone nymphs in addition to the hoppers. You've got to hope for the right weather and fish hopper and ants or nymph with small nymphs which can be hard because of split shot and getting the right weight.

The stones are out on the Yellowstone, so the nymphing has been consistent and good over there when the fish aren't up in the mornings.

I did fish the Missouri a couple of days ago below Holter. The nymphing was ridiculous the first day, tough the second. Increased flow on day two brought a mess of floating weeds, making it nearly impossile to get a clean drift. Heading to the Big Horn on Thursday, speaking of weeds.

August Already

Well the hopper plague is apparently here. The hopper fishing has just been getting predictably good just about everywhere here in SW Montana. We had a few days of cool weather which really helped out the LM and got the fish on the bite pretty well over there. The Yellowstone has been very reliable and even maybe a bit too good to be true at times. The Upper Madison has remained it's moody self, reminding me a few days why its also called the Murderson.

I guided an 89 year old that fished with us for 5 days. It was really a treat to know that he was just thankful to be out there with his son and grandson on some beautiful water, catching some fish. I hope I make it that long and have fun getting there.

The seaosn is shaping up to be really really good and I'm excited to be in the middle of it. My next day off is AUg 16 and my last one was a week ago, so this run will be a 3 weeks every day. I kinda like my job and my office is great this time of year.