Note: Not sure when I wrote this or for whom, but I found it while searching my files and thought it would be worth posting. You’ve got a couple months before this hatch hits, but it’s worth thinking about it now and getting those flies in order, or tying some to supplement what you may have lost last year. GT
The mother’s day caddis is a hatch I love to hate.
Half the time it comes off when water conditions are sketchy at best, and other times a fish has no chance of finding my bug on the water when there are, literally, millions of naturals riding the flow.
The hatch occurs anytime from late April through the end of May on most Inland Northwest and Rocky Mountain rivers (later on some Yellowstone area streams), just prior to (if you’re lucky) or just after (if you’re not) runoff hits in full force. When runoff arrives streams rise and turn clouded, meaning the color of black coffee mixed with two splashes of half-and-half. Place a fish a few inches below the lip of that latte, and you might see why Continue reading
Ok, there are flakes falling today and the high will be 35, and it doesn’t look better for the rest of the week. But, things are changing here in Missoula, Montana, with the snowbanks slowly creeping away from the edge of my driveway, exposing a little brown grass and everything else that accumulated there this winter, including a few IPA escapees.
If you’ve been around a bit and you fancy yourself a permit junkie, you may recall having seen this a time or two during your escapades. If you haven’t stood over this piece of art you are cheating yourself out of the real deal. Got permit on your mind? Get to this spot. Hints: it’s a permit ok; it’s made out of bottle caps; it would have been fun to help build that supply of caps.
I live in Montana where trout are king. When I travel to Alaska I usually do so for salmon and steelhead, which I can’t find in Big Sky Country. Oh, I’ve leeched up some big fall rainbows on the Kenai Peninsula and the Naknek River, but I’d never really fished early summer around Bristol Bay . . . until last month.
As you probably know, portions of Montana flooded heavily last year, after a unique runoff/rain event. One of those places was Absarokee, where rivers jumped their banks and bridges washed out. I visited the area in September and saw, firsthand, the devastation. I also fished the area rivers and, thankfully, found a bunch of willing trout that survived these wicked high flows.
I was nine hours into the drive before I realized that Cline River isn’t actually a town and, instead
This is the day we have been waiting for, for more than a decade. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that mine waste would harm the Bristol Bay watershed and effectively nixed its discharge into rivers, streams