Fly Fishing Montana
Snapped my TFO
Mar 14th
Post by Jeff Thomas
Last weekend I took a trip to Missoula to hang out with my family and all of my close buddies. My best friend Casey suggested that I bring my fishing gear because he wanted to take me on a float down the Bitterroot River (South of Missoula) with his and his Brother Taylor who is a guide for the “Missoulian Angler.” I told him that I would love to do a float.
We met the next morning and headed down south. We arrived at the put in area. In a matter of seconds I snapped my TFO rod on a MONSTER (actually i just snapped it somehow as I was casting) luckily we were still in close proximity to the truck so I hopped out and got Casey’s extra 4wt. Back on the river Taylor had set us up with the appropriated flies and we pulled over on the first nice run. I had positioned myself at the top of a fast moving run and I got a huge hit on my first cast. I was hooked up on a nice brown! I had it on only for a few seconds when it jumped out of the water with a violent thrash and spit the fly. I was kind of pissed because the first one to catch a fish didn’t have to Shotgun a 16 oz Beer. Needless to say Taylor pulled in a nice Rainbow about 2 minutes later from the same hole. We headed down stream and Casey had hooked what he thought was a monster. It was fighting like crazy and running on him every time we got it close. It still turned out to be a nice rainbow but it was foul-hooked so it seemed bigger, especially on a 4 wt rod.
We caught a ton of whitefish which we kept about 15 to smoke. and quite a few Trout. The weather couldn’t have been any better. We were on the River from 11am to 6:30pm. Can’t wait to go back next time I’m in town.
Some “MO” Good News
Feb 20th
By Jeff Thomas
A few days ago my Co-worker and I headed down to the Missouri River to do a little fishing. We headed out around 9:30 am and were surprised that it was already 32 degrees out so early in the day. We got our Nymph rigs all set up (mine a Black Wooley bugger with a lightning bug trailer) and Robert had a Bead-headed Prince with an egg pattern. (In case anything was starting to spawn early)
We split up, Robert decided to stay upstream and I headed down stream. I caught 3 decent sized fish in about a 2-3 hour period. It was pretty slow. I decided to head upstream to see how Robert was doing. As I rounded the bend I saw him set the hook on a rising fish. Robert had found a pool that a ton of fish were going crazy for Midges.
I said “how many have you caught?” he said about 25 with a huge smile on his face and a chuckle. I thought he was BS’n me until I saw him catch about 5 in 2 minutes. I brought no dry flies with me but he had an extra Crippled Emerger and I went to work on them as well. I must have hauled in a quick 20 10-14 inch Rainbows and Robert ended up with around 45 fish himself. It ended up being a great February Midge Hatch on the MO.
Ice Fishing Derby
Jan 31st
Post by Jeff Thomas
I know this isn’t Fly Fishing, but Big Hoss heard about an Ice Fishing Derby that we decided to enter and wanted to here what went down.
My Friend Casey Scott called me a few weeks back and asked if I’d heard about the Perch Derby coming up. I told him no but we thought it would be a good excuse to get all of the boys together to hangout and do some fishing. We called all of our closest friends from Missoula and Butte, and somehow got everyone to actually show up.
The night before the Derby started we got all of our gear together and our rods all set up. After a “quick” trip downtown for a few beers (Thanks for driving Farnes) we were in bed.
The following morning we met everyone we were fishing with at Canyon Ferry (A Lake in Helena, MT). We noticed as we were unloading all of our gear that we only had two 4-wheelers between 15 people. We had no idea that we had about a 2 mile trek to our fishing destination. After tying all of the Jet Sleds together about 8-9 of us started the long walk, watching the taillights of the 4-wheelers disappear into the darkness. Then about half-way there we noticed that full-sized trucks were driving by us. I kept saying how dumb they were, but after a while when the sun came up I realized there were trucks everywhere.
When we finally got to our spot we started to set up all of the Ice huts. It was 16 degrees out but with the wind chill it was 10 degrees. It hurt to have your gloves off for even 30 seconds. After we had all of the holes drilled we finally heard “Fish On” from our buddy Jay Slocum. We were all excited and really got down to business watching our rods. It was kind of like watching paint dry except you had a beer in your hand the whole time. We fished for about 3 hrs when I was talked into hitching a ride back to get my truck on a 4-wheeler. Mostly because we didn’t want to have to walk all of the way back with all the gear.
When I returned the fishing got hot for a little while. Turns out that we couldn’t just leave the rods by them self. We found out that they would only hit if we were jigging. We ended pulling in 12 good sized perch together as a group. The Derby was for the Biggest Perch. We had 2 fish that we entered that Casey and Brad caught. (These perch were all pretty good sized).
We ended up going to the weigh in but unfortunately we didn’t catch a winner. But even though the fishing was slower than we all expected, we all had a great time and you can’t beat hanging out with all of your closest friends.
Another Bow from the MO!
Jan 21st
Last year I was able to fish Rock Creek by Missoula and other rivers around that area. I don’t think I will be able to get up in Montana fish much this year so I need to live vicariously through my friends up there. My buddy Jeff Thomas has been fishing the Missouri River a bunch lately and I want to get these quick reports up because one of my favorite Montana rivers is the Mighty MO.
After a long cold morning on the Missouri River by Wolf Creek, MT John Hill (seen in picture) landed a nice 22 inch Rainbow Trout. Its always nice to not go home skunked.
We had a pretty rough morning with no action. As I was putting away my rod I heard FISH ON! Right before that John threw on a Black Wooley Bugger and hooked into a huge BOW. He yelled at me to grab the net and after he wore this fish out a little we finally got him netted. It was a nice end to a slow day of fishing. He told me that he was out of ideas on which fly to tie on until he thought of one of the Frenzy’s recent posts about Black Wooley buggers and figured “Why Not?”
“When all else fails tie on some big meat and Chuck N Duck”
Report from the Missouri
Jan 16th
Post by Jeff Thomas
Thursday morning my buddy Ryan and I headed out on a 45 min drive from Helena up to Craig, MT to fish the Missouri River. We finally were experiencing some nice weather after a month long cold spell. When we arrived in Craig, we stopped into the Trout Shop to pick their brains about which flies were hitting. I was directed to the Pink Scuds and a size 18 Zebra Midge. Then we were off to find a good spot.
The Temp was 50 degrees and there was no wind. It was about 20 minutes until I hooked my first fish. It felt like a big one but it had shakin itself loose. I headed down river and hooked into a nice 18 inch Rainbow. It didn’t feel all that big but I was pleasantly surprised when I got him in. After a few pics snapped I kept on down the river. Right after Ryan had a nice hit but couldn’t get him hooked. The fishing was pretty slow the rest of the morning. Ryan tried a couple of different combinations but unfortunately was unsuccessful. We were just glad to get out and do something outside after being couped up for the past month.
