Missouri River Montana
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.
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.
Missouri River Brown
Nov 18th
By Jeff Thomas
About 3 weeks after Big Hoss Came to Montana on his “work trip” I headed out on the Missouri River with my buddy Ryan Graves. We got up early and headed across the Dam while it was still dark. We found a nice spot where there was a perfect shelf that I had a feeling was gonna produce some nice sized fish.
After about 15 minutes I had hooked a something Fierce. I must have fought this fish for a good 5-7 minutes. I was half-way through my backing when it spit the hook. After a few choice words and some heckling from my buddy behind me, I was back at it.
So I worked my way upstream and then WHAMMY! I had another one on! I new he wasn’t as big as the previous one but still had a lot of size to him. After jumping out of the water about 3 times, my buddy could here me hootin’ and hollerin’ and came running around the corner just in time to take a picture. It measured a healthy 23 inches, and I was able go home with a smile on my face.
Fishing New Water
Oct 23rd
When thinking about writing this post I wanted to just tell what we did where we fished and throw up a few pictures. I know that is most of the time what I do but this time when I sat back thinking of how satisfying it was to fish new waters and have great success I wanted to share a couple pointers that I do when I hit new waters.
Last week I had a meeting in Great Falls, MT so I wanted to plan extra time on the way up and the way back to fish. On the way up we stopped on the Beaverhead just a mile or so below the dam. I read some things about the river and the advice was to use a pheasant tail size 16. Right when I hit the water I put on the recommended fly and sure enough it produced and produced big!! The down side was I only had my camera phone to take some pics.
On the way back we hit the Missouri River right outside of Helena. My friend that lives there met up with us to show us what to use and where to fish. We ended up below Hauser Dam and the fish were active, we ended up landing a few nice rainbows.
After fishing these waters I will be heading back as soon as possible.
