Online Fishing Community - Flyfishing

Making the Perfect Cast When Nypmh Fishing

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:48:25 -0500

A good wade fisherman is like a sharpshooter that applies all focus to their target and ignores everything else. Unfortunately, many anglers use the more of a shotgun approach when wade fishing and try to scour a creek or river by spraying casts in every direction. Many fly fisherman quickly begin to learn that most trout occupy a small percentage of a river, choosing to lie in the most productive zones such as seams, riffle corners, and riffle drops. Even when anglers recognize the best holding water in a river, I have noticed that few fisherman consistently use the correct casting distance for specific situations when nymph fishing.

How to catch really big trout

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 23:42:17 -0500

How to catch monster trout

Spectacular scenery, time with our friends and the joy wading a cold river are frequently rates as the main draws to fly fishing. Most avid fly fisherman are quick to comment that it isn’t really the size or even the number of trout caught that defines a great day but rather simply being away from the office and on the water. While landing monstrously large trout is not always the main priority for many fly fisherman, lets all fess up and admit that we wouldn’t mind a nice picture on the desk of a massive hook jawed brown whose belly sags over hour hands as we struggled against his weight to hold him for the camera. Every red blooded fly fisherman needs to catch at least one monster at some time in his or her life! Some of us get downright addicted to catching grandaddy trout and begin engaging in disturbing behaviours like throwing 10” streamers during a PMD hatch when all of your friends are catching fish left and right with their dry fly imitations. Since monster trout aren’t and every day occurrence it pays to target them if you want to get serious at making your friends jealous with your post fishing trip photo email. So how big is huge? This is obviously depends on person to person and region to region. Here in Southern Montana we consider any trout over 20” to be of serious consequence and is probably enough to make all of your friends back home envious. If you live in big trout country and all of your friends are fishing guides then you have to raise the bar even higher...a 23” brown will definitely be a nice fish but won’t generate much buzz in the local shops. To really light up the local conversations you need to shoot for the 25 - 30” range. If you are lucky enough to hang a 28 or 29” brute you will be forever enshrined with your grip and grin shot hanging behind the counter of at least one fly shop and your hog photo will go viral on email and facebook accounts around Montana!

Montana fly fishing off the beaten path

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:16:48 -0400

It is hard to pull a fly fishing magazine off of a shelf and not find an article or photo of Montana fly fishing. The shear number and density of world class trout rivers in the state rivals any other location in the world. Rivers like the Madison, Yellowstone, Bighorn, Missouri, Gallatin, Big Hole, and Jefferson have long been on the short list of passionate fly fisherman from around the world.

Montana fly fishing guide: post runnoff fishing

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:12:28 -0400

Montana fly fishing is often at its best just after runoff subsides. Post runoff fishing can be very good for a variety of different reasons. First, trout have not been fished to in several weeks…it is hard to fish when you are dodging floating debris! Second, water temperatures are hitting the mid 50s (F) and both the aquatic insects and trout are becoming much more active. Third, strong mid river currents push trout close to banks where, effectively concentrating all of the fish in the river into a small zone along the edge of the river. Fourth, several of the best aquatic insect hatches occur just after runoff including the monstrous salmon fly that can entice even the largest fish to the surface. Finally, several smaller rivers are only floatable during the short season after runoff, thus increasing the opportunities for float fishing.

Madison river fly fishing: a return to greatness

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:11:06 -0400

Montana’s Madison River has long been one of the most famous and revered rivers in the world. The river often is listed as the number one trout river in North American and appears in books with titles like “50 places to fish before you die”. In the mid 90s everything changed for the river when a microscopic invader had a devastating impact on the river. Whirling disease is a small microbe that affects rainbow trout. The parasite causes deformation in the spinal cord of young trout that causes them to swim in circles, usually resulting in death. In some reaches of the river, mortality of rainbow trout reached levels over 90%. News of the outbreak quickly spread throughout the angling community and the number of fisherman visiting the river drastically decreased. The Madison river became the poster child for whirling disease and the microbe quickly hitchhiked to other rivers around the West producing similar results. Some states, like Colorado, tackled the problem by stocking rainbow trout fingerlings. In Montana, where there all trout in rivers are wild and there is not a hatchery program, fisheries biologists decided to let nature run its course. The gamble paid off, and the trout that did survive the initial massive die offs began showing some resistance to the disease.

Montana fly fishing: the salmonfly hatch

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:08:29 -0400

Montana fly fishing is well known for some of its great hatches. The Salmon fly hatch in Montana is one of the world’s most legendary fishing spectacles. It ranks near the top with fishing the giant migratory tarpon of the Homosassa flats, site fishing to back country New Zealand trout, Tierra del Fuego sea run browns, the green drake hatch on Penn’s Creek and the sedge hatch on an English chalk stream. The mystique of the Salmon fly is the gargantuan size of both the insect and the trout that try to eat them.

Montana fly fishing: five tips for hopper fishing

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:06:24 -0400

Montana fly fishing in late summer brings some of the most highly anticipated dry fly fishing of the season. Montana’s numerous large agricultural valleys filled with alfalfa fields are a haven for the large insects. Although grasshoppers fill the fields in the early summer, trout do not get interested in them until they molt from the nymph stage to and adult stage. As adult insects, hoppers have wings allowing them to become airborne. Because they are not strong fliers, they can be easily diverted into rivers, especially on windy days. Afternoon winds on sunny days are a daily occurrence as warm valley bottom air rushes upriver to replace the cooler air in the headwaters. The combination of lots of grasshoppers with breezy afternoons results in some of the world’s best hopper fishing. The large size of a typical grasshopper sometimes induces larger trout to the surface, and the size of the fish combined with the often exciting takes produces some of the year’s most satisfying surface fishing. Follow these five tips to improve your odds during hopper time.

Low pressure fly fishing strategies for trout

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:05:15 -0400

Trout are smart. Their peanut sized brain my not afford them the kind of intelligence needed to use sign language with their fins or swim a choreographed ballet at sea world, but they do have the cunning to identify fake food with a hook in it. The fact of the matter is that trout remember getting caught and become more cautious in their food selection as a result. Anyone who has fished a famous stream or river that receives heavy fishing pressure has probably gone through the ego deflating experience of watching a trout refuse one fly pattern after another while gobbling several natural insects in between careful inspections of the artificials. Trout that have had little or no interactions with anglers rarely take time to inspect a fly and almost always take a decent imitation of anything remotely resembling food with reckless abandon. In the mid 90s I had the opportunity to travel to Kamchatka to fish for trout, grayling and salmon. We set the trip up with a fledgling tourist company that promised us visas and an opportunity to fish. Since we didn’t have advanced knowledge of the type of rivers we would fish and realized that we would be essentially guiding ourselves, we used Alaskan patterns as our basis for the flies we tied leading up to the trip. When we set out for the trip I had tied over five hundred egg patterns, egg sucking leaches, flash flies and other Alaskan mainstay. After several long airplane flights and two full days of four wheel drive roads we arrived at our destination. To our surprise the river was actually a large spring creek that originated from the base of a tall Volcano. The waterway was complete with weed beds, glassy currents and gin clear water. Our first instincts were to present size 22 midge patterns that would be standard fair on similar waters back home. Upon this realization we had a slight panic attack when recognizing that we had left our fly boxes with spring creek patterns back in the states. As it turned out, we spent our time on this amazing river casting size 4 egg sucking leaches and mouse patterns to huge resident rainbows. Since these trout had never been fished to they took the oversized patterns eagerly.

Montana fishing seasons

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:03:08 -0400

Montana fishingseasons and hatches vary slightly from year to year but always follow the same annual pattern. The early fishing is dominated by aquatic insect hatches and the timing of these hatches varies a few weeks from year to year based on water flows and temperatures.

Bozeman fly fishing

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:52:28 -0400

Bozeman fly fishing is some of the best in Montana. It is physically impossible to walk three blocks in Bozeman without running into fly fishing references. Gift shops are overrun with fly fishing Santas, royal coachman bed sheets and carved wooden trout. The town is literally surrounded by its five fly shops and four outdoor sporting goods stores and several Montana fishing lodges. It seems like one out of 4 locals owns a boat and many of them make their living as fishing guides. Bozeman has the highest concentration of fly fishing and wildlife photographers of any town on earth: flip open your TU calendar or the newest issue of fly fisherman magazine and half of the photos are from Gallatin Valley shutter flies. Realtors’ business cards are adorned with grip and grin portraits of the large fish they have caught on local waters. Montana State University is the de facto institution of higher learning to focus on trout ecology. The Federation of Fly Fishers is located across the pass in Livingston with its International Fly Fishing Museum. The local breweries malted beverages have names like Hopper Pale Ale and Trout Slayer. Want a drift boat?...the best in the world are made at the edge of town at RO drift boats. Want the best waders on the planet?... you guessed it, they’re made by Simms here in Bozeman. Where do the wave of hip, Warren Miller-esque, fly fishing movies make their debuts? …right here in Bozeman to an always packed house of frothing, fishing crazed locals. Where does Orvis hold its annual Guide Rendezvous? Bozeman of course…seemingly half of the world’s top fly fishing guides live in driving distance.

Montana fly fishing: carp fishing

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:48:18 -0400

Montana has deservedly gained a reputation for offering some of the world’s finest fly fishing for wild trout. Visiting anglers come to Montana in search of pristine waters, large trout, great hatches and unparalleled scenery. Carp fishing on a Montana fishing trip is not usually what most fisherman envision when they travel to the Big Sky state, but visiting anglers that give it a try are rarely disappointed.

Montana Fly Fishing - How to Catch Large Trout

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:47:01 -0400

Montana fly fishing has become synonymous large trout. With hundreds of thousands of miles of quality trout streams, spectacular scenery and an unspoiled landscape it is easy to see why the state holds a special place in the hearts of fly fisherman from around the globe. Montana is also one of the few places in the lower 48 where an angler can consistently catch wild trout over 20”. As a longtime guide and Montana fishing outfitter, I have learned that nothing tops of a Montana fishing trip better hand catching a giant trout. 20 grip and grin photos of 14” fish can’t add up to a single great photo of a truly big fish! All though anyone fishing the waters of some of Montana’s legendary lake and rivers can stumble on to a trophy fish at anytime, there are several ways to maximize your chances of hooking and landing big fish.

Fall Fly Fishing in Montana

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:43:37 -0400

Fly fishing in Montana is legendary. To take full advantage of the habitat on this great river anglers need to know how to fish its many large rocks. Island rocks on the Madison River are like normal rocks on steroids and are probably the single best type of trout habit found in a river. Island rocks are special types of medium to large rocks that are surrounded by much smaller sediments like sand or gravel. Island rocks are easy to pick out because they look out of place and stick out like a sore thumb. These rocks look like an island in an otherwise nondescript section of river and draw trout like a magnet. Although large rocks are encountered with great abundance, they are not island rocks since they are surrounded by numerous other large rocks. Island rocks are usually found where the most common size of sediment is smaller making them much more unusual. Island rocks can be deposited in several different ways. On the Madison, huge car or house sized boulders were picked up by large glaciers and then dropped in random locations when the glaciers melt leaving behind “glacial erratics”. On other rivers other oversized rocks were deposited during huge floods that occur when natural dams breached in the past or when epic floods occurred during hurricane driven rainstorms. These massive floods have enough power to roll massive rocks down the river that are then locked in place for hundreds or thousands of years afterwards. Finally, large rocks are sometimes deposited by heavy machinery to purposely improve trout habitat during stream improvement projects.

Madison river fly fishing - large rocks

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:40:06 -0400

Madison river fly fishing is legendary. To take full advantage of the habitat on this great river anglers need to know how to fish its many large rocks. Island rocks on the Madison River are like normal rocks on steroids and are probably the single best type of trout habit found in a river. Island rocks are special types of medium to large rocks that are surrounded by much smaller sediments like sand or gravel. Island rocks are easy to pick out because they look out of place and stick out like a sore thumb. These rocks look like an island in an otherwise nondescript section of river and draw trout like a magnet. Although large rocks are encountered with great abundance, they are not island rocks since they are surrounded by numerous other large rocks. Island rocks are usually found where the most common size of sediment is smaller making them much more unusual. Island rocks can be deposited in several different ways. On the Madison, huge car or house sized boulders were picked up by large glaciers and then dropped in random locations when the glaciers melt leaving behind “glacial erratics”. On other rivers other oversized rocks were deposited during huge floods that occur when natural dams breached in the past or when epic floods occurred during hurricane driven rainstorms. These massive floods have enough power to roll massive rocks down the river that are then locked in place for hundreds or thousands of years afterwards. Finally, large rocks are sometimes deposited by heavy machinery to purposely improve trout habitat during stream improvement projects.

Fishing Montana's Salmon Fly Hatch

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:43:31 -0500

By Brian McGeehan
McGeehan’s Big Sky Angler
http://www.bigskyangler.com

The Salmon fly hatch in Montana is one of the world’s most legendary fishing spectacles. It ranks near the top with fishing the giant migratory tarpon of the Homosassa flats, site fishing to back country New Zealand trout, Tierra del Fuego sea run browns, the green drake hatch on Penn’s Creek and the sedge hatch on an English chalk stream. The mystique of the Salmon fly is the gargantuan size of both the insect and the trout that try to eat them.