Colder Slower Lower

The Orvis Rendezvous has been in town this week. It's a once a year event that brings together many of the endorsed operations such as ours for a few days of seminars and networking. It's a great event, it's just that I can never go when it's in Bozeman as I usually have to work. It's always good though to be reminded of what makes this job so rewarding every once in awhile. At the end of the day, I think I probably enjoy meeting interesting people and sharing a little bit of myself and world with them. Catching fish is great, but I think I'll probably hold my memories of converstaions and reactions longer than most of the fish.

Anyway, I did get on the LM for a bit today with Charlie and John from the shop. The bite was pretty dismal and I'm not sure why. The water temps are cold, but there are a lot of BWO's and thw ater clarity is 3+ feet with stable flows. The fish we did hook were in buckets and eddies, nothing on the random flats.

Hopefully tomorrow is a different story, regardless, I'll work hard and see what we can find. It usually works out alright for me one way or another over there.

Blizzahd

Well it's been a wild 3 days of some whacked out weather. The end of April is usually characterized by some nice weather and days spent waiting and hoping for the Mother's Day Caddis. It's usually a casual time of year with some great fishing.

Monday was cold, windy and fishing sucked on the Yellowstone. Where else on earth can you have shore to shore Bateis on the water speckled with a billion March Browns and no rising fish? Junkified. 

Yesterday we went up to the Missouri, expecting some good fishing for a couple of days. Instead, we got up there just in time to verify the Winter Storm Warning accuracy. We fished for a coupel hours, fought the wind a bit and ended up eating lunch in the outhouse at the Wolf Creek Bridge, huddled up to the trusty ol' Mr. Heater. Fishing was good for the hour or so we actually fished. Seemed like the fish are back in the river.

Today was on the LM and I though ahead, opted for a walk wade. The morning was terrible, afternoon was pretty good. Lots of BWO's and the usual pinnners up eating away. Got some decnt fish on Bubblebacks and crayfish. 

I'm fishing the next week and hoping for that spring weather I used to know and love.

Weather

I fished the UM a couple days ago with Huz UR Daddy. We arrived and the weather was great, overcast, no wind, mid 40's. After and hour or so, the wind began ripping up river out of the north and brought with it several inches of snow pellets. Felt great on the cheeks! So I don't have much to report other than that the river looked good in Ennis and the Beartrap.

I'm guiding all next week so hoping that this cold weather we're having right now might bring the Yellowstone back around for a few days. The Mother's Day caddis should be a week or so away.

April Showers

It's been a wild weather coaster the last week here in SW Montana with the mountains getting 2 feet of snow a week ago and now it's almost 80 degrees an everything is green. We're supposed to get more rain later this week. So, is the runoff started or not? Things are definitely getting dirty but I don't think this is the big push, its just low elevation stuff right now as the mountains are staying cool at night.

I've fished the Upper Madison and the Big Horn since last I wrote. 

The Upper has been very good but mostly nymphing. The Golden Stones seem to be very active and I found a MFC pattern called the Real Stone that just seems to work real well up there. The boat accesses are opening up and fish are moving into the buckets more and more. Things should stay good up there until runoff really gets going.

The Big Horn was a disappointment. Water levels are higher than normal at 3200 cfs and very cold. We got fish both days but really had to work for them. I've grown accustomed to 50+ fish days over there the last few years, so I was pretty surprised when we got about 25 in the boat each day and we had to work for them. We fished a variety of bugs and never really found anything that was better than anything else. We got fish on just about everything, we just never really got into a lot of them. The weather was great, camaraderie super, and it was a great time overall. I also learned that you can call the Park Ranger if you lock your keys in the car, he's much cheaper than the locksmith that I used!

Sprung Spring

The weather has been outrageous the last few days, it'll probably go back to snow and cold in a few days. That's just how it seems to go here in SW Montana. Just when you think it's time to put the rod rack in the truck, wax the boat, or get a new wide brim hat, it snows again. Regardless, we've got a great snow pack this year, not too much to ruin June, but enough to get us through August.

I guided the LM yesterday and although we had to work at it, we ended up with a pretty good day. The water is still real cold in the mornings, so we had to work the buckets and holes with lots of weight to keep everything moving slow as the flows are up a bit. We ended up just wading all day and I think that was a good call as the boat fishing couldn't have been too good. 

Those bright sunny days and low angle of the sun this time of year just make for some tough conditions and spooky fish. My key has been to go to finer tippets, flourocarbon only, white indicators and mess around with the weight. I pretty much always fish a crayfish with a dropper of some sort this time of year. It's not the bugs so much as finding where the feeding fish are feeding and active. 

I did pump one fish yesterday and it was munching on worms and BWO nymphs. The BWO's are out over there now, so look for some cloudy days and get over there for some good dry fishing