Spring time in the Northern Rockies

Yesterday it blowing 75 mph in the valley, today it was absolutely spectacular. Me and the boat dog got out for a float and enjoyed the great weather.

Listening to the Masters while floating down a river in SW Montana...man it doesn't get much better.

Nymph bite kept our attention. He's a pretty mellow boat dog but does get interested whenever you hook a fish. Like, every single time.

And not sure patterns really mattered as I found success on wire worms, march brown nymphs, and egg patterns.

Don't recall ever seeing these on this stretch. So that was kind of cool.

And managed to find my first decent fish of the year on the streamer. Been messing around with some different colors...this one fell for burnt orange.

Weather is about to turn again so I'm going to settle in on the bench for a couple days and watch one of the great sporting events of all time.

But today was great. Love spring time here and more to come.

 

[Bruce Baker]

Love your photos. Keep up the great work. But that first photo in your original post of boat dog in the boat by himself/herself is an Awesome photo!

 

[O' Clarkii Stomias]

Ben Hogan ??

Yes

 

[Old Man]

Love your photos. Keep up the great work. But that first photo in your original post of boat dog in the boat by himself/herself is an Awesome photo!

I think that dog was just sitting in my seat keeping it warn until I show up.

 

[swimmy]

Just got off from two days on one the great tailwaters in the world. Mid May is one of my favorite times to fish here as the nymphing is easy and if conditions line up you can get some great dry fly fishing in the afternoons.

Thursday was incredible and was the exact type of day we were looking for. The weather was perfect - light winds, bit of rain in the morning, partly sunny in the afternoon. The nymphing was solid in the morning and right on cue we got a nice blue wing hatch in the afternoon with fish gettin' up on 'em.

The stoke was high.

Friday was a little tough and a good reminder of how challenging this place can be. Winds picked up...15-25 with 35 mph gusts. So it was more of a find shelter, pull over, and wade type of game.

But if you could get a drift, fish were still feeding. Our hot flies were Micro Mays, little green machines, and pill poppers (basically a sow bug with a hot head.)

All-in-all, happy with the trip. I call this place Disneyland for trout fisherman. Year in year out, it continues to be world class fishery.

It has been a cold wet spring but slowly making the transition into early summer. Next up, caddis.

 

[swimmy]

As I said, next up is caddis.

Feel like I'm behind the Mother's Day hatch. But with the cold/wet weather we've been having also was thinking it had to be late. So we finally got a warm day/light winds and I went to check it out.

I did see a few bugs early on but no real major hatch. So I took some random photos.

Then around 3 things started happening. I dropped anchor and just watched for about an hour. The hatch was not as thick as years past (again, maybe I'm late) but still a lot of bugs. It is cool being in the middle of this many bugs.

Dinks were rising and between a Goddard Caddis and emerger, I managed to pick off a few. I will say the nymph bite was solid pretty much from start to finish on wire worms and various pupa patterns.

Finally, near the take out I saw this guy try to pick off a fish. I tried to photograph but images came out blurry. He came up empty anyway but super hard to pull that off. Gonna have to work on my technique.

Yeah, pretty good day.

 

[Oliver1329]

As I said, next up is caddis.

Feel like I'm behind the Mother's Day hatch. But with the cold/wet weather we've been having also was thinking it had to be late. So we finally got a warm day/light winds and I went to check it out.

I did see a few bugs early on but no real major hatch. So I took some random photos.

Then around 3 things started happening. I dropped anchor and just watched for about an hour. The hatch was not as thick as years past (again, maybe I'm late) but still a lot of bugs. It is cool being in the middle of this many bugs.

Dinks were rising and between a Goddard Caddis and emerger, I managed to pick off a few. I will say the nymph bite was solid pretty much from start to finish on wire worms and various pupa patterns.

Finally, near the take out I saw this guy try to pick off a fish. I tried to photograph but images came out blurry. He came up empty anyway but super hard to pull that off. Gonna have to work on my technique.

Yeah, pretty good day.

Awesome

 

[swimmy]

Runoff has officially started

 

[swimmy]

One more from yesterday.

Today is gonna be windy as fuck but I have guests in town. We are going to get above the trib dumping in mud and see if we can find shelter from the wind.

 

[iggie]

I have seen heron rookeries on a lake in California. They make a ruckus that sounds like dogs.

Iggie

 

[Buzzy]

Runoff has officially started

My wife and I were in Hamilton yesterday, the Bitterroot was high and dirty - but not too muddy. It was warm (70F) even up high in the Bitterroots (traveled over US-12) so I'm sure the Bitterroot got dirtier. The Lochsa wasn't dirty (yet?), by the time with its confluence with the Selway, the "Clearwater" was dirty.


We spent the night in Riggins, the Salmon River. Left the window open in the motel last night, listening to the river lulled us to sleep.

 

[Wanative]

Back at today after a little break. Got out for a solo float which I dig every once and a while. I can take my time, take some photos, and just putz around.

Wanted to try out some of my new streamers, see how they swim, and see if they'd stick a 2' brown. Checked off the first two but still looking for the 2'er.

Actually didn't land a single fish on the streamer. But got into a nice baetis hatch and wrecked a bunch of dinks on blue wings.

I also can't quit looking in the trees and noticed another heron rookery. Thanks to the member who named this for me.

We've got more snow coming in tomorrow so gonna take a day or two off. But planning on getting the camper out Sunday and posting up on the river for a few days.

Love the rookery shot. Lots of herons close to home here too.

 

[swimmy]

Incredible day yesterday. We managed to find the one spot in the state that wasn't blowing 30mph and this bite was en fuego.

Lots of trout eating caddis and midge larvae from start to finish. Then in the afternoon clouds moved in and the streamer bite turned on.

Absolutely love it up here. One of the most unique fisheries in the world.

Also one of the most technical pieces of water to row in a hard boat. You better have some game to float here as this is no joke folks!

Super fun past couple of days. About to get cold again with snow in the forecast the next few days. Considering hauling the camper up and hunkerin' down. We'll see.

 

[swimmy]

What an amazing day. Temps have really cooled down so runoff has been tamped down. It is the absolute best case scenario and awesome that we are fishing clear water on some streams this late in May.

It was my friend's oldest kid's birthday so we all met up for a day on the water. Impressive how good this kid is with a fly rod. @Evan B the little guy was rockin' an Ecko Gecko

He even managed to catch a few. What's better than a birthday brown?

My friend's father in law rode in my boat all day.

Dude has an interesting story. He was a professional skate board racer in California in the 70's. He outgrew racing and decided to move to Jackson, WY in '77 where he met up with John Simms. Together they started Simms. They sold to Walsh in the early 90's and he then went on to start several other companies including Croakies and Life-Link. Now he runs a production company called Teton Film Works. He is way into cool ass music (huge Panic fan) so of course we hit it off.

This was his last project. Dang it is SOOOOOO fucking good. I've never heard the kid miss.



Back to our day. Weather was not exactly what we were thinking but no biggie, this is spring time in the Northern Rockies! Just kind of wish the light was better for this one.

I've been out a couple times this week and the afternoon streamer bite has been en fuego. Fun when they are eating the big stuff and I'm always amazing the water these browns will hold in. I hooked quite a few, including my best of the year. Just a tank

I wasn't the only one having a good day. Of course I missed the money shot when he dove and grabbed a fish right in front of us. I didn't have much of the bird in the image and what little I did was out of focus. That is so hard to get right. Still cool just watching this guy hover.

Driving back to town the sun started peaking through. What an absolute fantastic landscape in a special time of year. This place is silly beautiful and I'm so grateful to call SW Montana home.

Today is calling for more wind/rain/snow. We'll see what the day brings but will be hard to top yesterday.

 

[swimmy]

Oh and give me this house and I'll be set for life.

 

[ifsteve]

Great reports and pics guys. Wish I could share some of my own. Hit two lakes since I got back to Idaho. Two guys fished a total of 9 hours and neither one of us has even had a hit. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. And one of those lakes was a pretty well known pay fishery!

Going to try tomorrow and if things don't improve i am going back to chasing redfish and drum. LOL

 

[flyfisherdon]

Thanks, Swimmy!! Great stuff.

Cheers!

 

[SpeyrodGB]

Spring time in the Rockies.

 

[Pink Nighty]

What an amazing day. Temps have really cooled down so runoff has been tamped down. It is the absolute best case scenario and awesome that we are fishing clear water on some streams this late in May.

It was my friend's oldest kid's birthday so we all met up for a day on the water. Impressive how good this kid is with a fly rod. @Evan B the little guy was rockin' an Ecko Gecko

He even managed to catch a few. What's better than a birthday brown?

My friend's father in law rode in my boat all day.

Dude has an interesting story. He was a professional skate board racer in California in the 70's. He outgrew racing and decided to move to Jackson, WY in '77 where he met up with John Simms. Together they started Simms. They sold to Walsh in the early 90's and he then went on to start several other companies including Croakies and Life-Link. Now he runs a production company called Teton Film Works. He is way into cool ass music (huge Panic fan) so of course we hit it off.

This was his last project. Dang it is SOOOOOO fucking good. I've never heard the kid miss.



Back to our day. Weather was not exactly what we were thinking but no biggie, this is spring time in the Northern Rockies! Just kind of wish the light was better for this one.

I've been out a couple times this week and the afternoon streamer bite has been en fuego. Fun when they are eating the big stuff and I'm always amazing the water these browns will hold in. I hooked quite a few, including my best of the year. Just a tank

I wasn't the only one having a good day. Of course I missed the money shot when he dove and grabbed a fish right in front of us. I didn't have much of the bird in the image and what little I did was out of focus. That is so hard to get right. Still cool just watching this guy hover.

Driving back to town the sun started peaking through. What an absolute fantastic landscape in a special time of year. This place is silly beautiful and I'm so grateful to call SW Montana home.

Today is calling for more wind/rain/snow. We'll see what the day brings but will be hard to top yesterday.

Billy Strings yall! So damn good. My only issue with him is my daughter heard the line "used my only phone call to contact my daddy. I got 20 long years for some dust in a baggie." And now that is The Daddy Song and it's her favorite.

 

[Islander]

Fabulous pictures and reports. I too love SW Montana, we ended up in Cody, but looked hard at some of that area just to the north.

 

[swimmy]

Got the family out for a float today. Fishing was pretty dang good in the afternoon once things warmed up.

Doesn't look like it but this might have been his first fish ever caught on a fly. Kid's got the look.

Yeah he was stoked. Super fun day.