Tuesday, August 11, 2009

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.

No comments: