Been on my favorite local creek several times in the last week as things have cooled off here in SW Montana considerably. Still battling a bit of haze and smoke from fires to the West, but cool rains have chilled things a bit. On the water yesterday before dawn to watch the sun blow off the mountain tops. Water was 52 degrees and crystal clear. Although air temps were in the low 40s, it was sunny early and that brought out what remained of the massive Trico hatches this creek experiences every summer. Brought a lot of fish to the surface early. By 10AM the clouds settled in and temps rose a bit. BWOs started coming off around noon which portends excellent angling in the cool weeks to come.
It wasn’t difficult to connect with fish using a small bugger soft-hackle combo. Just swing it through a pod and hang on. A lot of fun on the 4 weight with bows and browns to 18 inches not that uncommon. The added joy were the big whitefish that tend to migrate into this creek to spawn in the Fall. Speaking of spawning, brown trout redds were starting to show in every deep riffle and tailout. By October there will be sections of the creek that are almost impassible because of the size of the redds. Browns in this creek must be night spawners as I never see any trout on the redds during daylight.
Had lots of guests on the river as well—hawks were everywhere and this juvenile bald eagle shadowed me all day.
The next 6 weeks are going to be some fine angling in SW Montana.
