Confessions of a Bunny Fur Addict

New BLOG Old BLOG...

2012-06-13T21:57:00.001-07:00

So for all my friends and all the customers who have tuned in over the years, this will be officially my last BLOG posting on this site for a while...

The great news is now we have our own BLOG built into the site at www.troutfitters.com and I'll still be rambling on about things fishing related on there, just too tough to maintain two BLOG's at once and run a business.

So for tips, tricks, and ramblings about random things and fishing, check it out, I've ported over a bunch of the old reads from this site onto the Troutfitters site as well!

- Kris

When they Tell You "You Can't" Do it Anyway

2012-03-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

Wow, that's depressing, it's been since December that I've had an opportunity to sit down and piece together a BLOG posting, but pretty soon here we'll have an entirely new system and all of our BLOG entries will be on our own website, with richer imagery, video's, gear reviews, and of course BS about fishing... Until then I'll try and be a little better about getting something up and on here!

I figured that with a mild winter and not a whole lot of crazy stuff going on that we'd shake things up a bit and talk about a topic that the Troutfitters crew loves to chat about - fishing a little bit outside of the box... If you are a purist turn away now, and really what the hell were you doing on here in the first place if you're a purist, haha...

One of my personal favorite things to do when I'm out fishing is to buck the conventional wisdom and try things out that people around fishing circles will tell you "don't ever work." One of the best places to do these odd ball things is on places traditionally thought of as "sacred places" like Spring Creeks, or famous dry fly fisheries. The other fun thing to do is to try out tactics at different times of year when fishermen will tell you "that only works during blank time of the year," and do exactly the opposite. You'll be surprised at how often things that "don't work" actually do, and how often the time of year is irrelevant.

Over the years there's been all sorts of "conventional wisdom" that I've put to the test, for instance one of the first things I heard when I really started fishing a lot was that fish on Spring Creeks are very selective and you need gentle presentations with fine tippet sizes and long leaders so that you don't spook the wary fish in gin clear water. For years growing up I floundered around in the creeks trying to make these subtle presentations, fishing only long leaders and small tippets and flies to rising fish with mixed success. At times this approach is extremely effective, and you can certainly make a name for yourself in the fishing world by dissecting rise forms, studying trout behavior in heavily pressured waters and making all sorts of fancy flies and leader formulas for picky fish.

This view of fishing was way too myopic for my tastes. After all, why would fish in Spring Creeks act completely differently then every other fish in the world? Why would they not react like any other animal and chase down prey if presented the option? Why? Well because of conventional wisdom. Too many fishermen over the year's wrote about the difficulty of catching these fish, but all of them were taking the exact same approach, trying to mimic minute food sources in small water to pressured fish. All I could think was why not try something everyone else isn't doing, and so I set about just trying out different techniques on Spring Creek waters in situations that called for something completely different according to the "How-to Manuals."

One of the most memorable times that I tried this buck the trend theory out was probably the better part of a decade ago, and I'm not claiming that I'm the first one to think of this. But, I'm pretty sure I was the only one I knew of fishing the Milesnick's Spring Creek with a 7 weight rod and a type 6 sink tip line with a 8 inch long articulated sculpin pattern in the middle of a blanket PMD hatch. That day I had already tried with varied success matching the hatch and catching fish on spinners, cripples, emergers, soft hackles, floating nymphs and duns and at that point had seen enough fish refuse or ignore my fly that I was sick of trying to match the hatch. So I walked back to my truck, grabbed my big river rod that was all rigged up from fishing the Yellowstone with 15lb test tippet and a giant articulated sculpin and decided I'd slap the water and see what would happen.

The first hole that I came down to and pitched that bug into I pulled out a 22" brown trout that probably had been feasting on those same size 16 PMD Cripples. Yet when I chugged this large piece of bunny fur through his home, he ate it with such ferocity you would have sworn he was trying to kill it first and eat it later. I chalked it up to dumb luck and went on down to the next bend where there were several fish podded up rising. I put a cast just below where the biggest fish of the bunch was rising and stripped it through as quick as I could and that fish hammered the streamer and tore all over the pool - when I got it to hand I put it on a measuring tape and it was a shade over 23" and had to be over 5lbs. The manner and expediency with which he forgot all about the PMD's and chased down that streamer changed the way I thought about trout behavior in supposed "picky" fishing situations.

One of the recent things I've been wanting to put to the test has been the theory that trout only eat mice during the warmer months of the year, and that they will only eat them late in the day or at night or early mornings. I think that gives too much credit to an animal with a brain the size of a pea that I've watched eat cigar butts during a salmonfly hatch. So the last several years I've gone about fishing some mice patterns in some places at some times of the year where people told me it wouldn't work. The first time I tried this theory out was last March over on the Beaverhead on a marginally overcast day and to my fishing partner's surprise, I whacked around a dozen fish swinging and stripping mice. They chased the pattern down with wreckless abandon, oftentimes jumping out of the water after the foam backed clump of rabbit hair and rubber legs. I've since fished mice on various other bodies of water with mixed success, but one common strand was that time of day didn't seem to matter,
There's been countless other times of the year when I've tried things through the middle of hatches that "shouldn't have worked" that ended up working wonders. I've thrown stuff in places where I've been told "they don't eat those things here" and caught piles of fish, and big fish too. I've gone out during times of the day or year when people have said "they won't eat blank at this time of year," and had fish chase blank all over the place and eat it with reckless abandon. The point of all of this is when someone tells you "that won't work" don't get discouraged, give it a try maybe it will work, maybe it won't. But it's a helluva lot of fun when you're wrecking fish somewhere on something that someone told you wouldn't work than it is to get skunked using everything that everyone told you would work!

Winter Fishing Pursuits

2011-12-20T09:10:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lax updating on the BLOG. That's what happens when kid #2 is on the way any day now! Doesn't leave much time for the misses to let me out of the house for fishing...

But before the year comes to a close I thought it would be fun to share a little article that only scratches the surface of why I enjoy fishing in the Winter as much as I do. Check it out, enjoy and I'll be sure and get on the river as soon as my daughter arrives and my wife lets me out of the house!!!

Since this will be the last article I pen for the season I thought it appropriate to take a little look forward to the next few months when so many anglers across the area will be retiring their fishing gear until next spring.

Now, I’m not one of those folks who puts my fishing gear away at the sign of the first freeze, oh no. When everyone else is getting their skis or boards polished up for the season I’m throwing on an extra layer or two and heading to the river for a few hours of solitude and winter fishing bliss. November can’t truly be considered a “winter” fishing month, but when December and January roll around and snow hits the ground, that’s when crazies are separated from the casual fishermen. As a member of the former and not the latter category, I’ll admit that my fishing habits borderline on “insane” as my wife often remarks. There’s something simple, calming, and refreshing about spending a brisk day on the water in the deep of the winter watching fish do their dance across the wintery backdrop of Montana’s rivers and streams. If you enjoy spending time in nature with very few people around, then you just might have what it takes to enjoy winter fishing. For those of you crazy enough to read on I’ll gladly share some winter retreats and a few tips on what you should be prepared with.

Winter: When What you Wear is Important
For the vast majority of the fishing season I contend that you can fish in a t-shirt, shorts and sandals if you like, not the case in the winter. If you plan on doing any winter fishing at all you are going to need to layer up just like you were going to go to the ski hill and find yourself some nice socks too because nothing kills a day of fishing faster than cold feet. Some sort of headgear is always necessary for fishing to protect the melon from flying hooks and something with a brim is nice for allowing you to see better on sunny days. For warmth purposes there’s a ton of “jeep caps” out there these days and if you can stand to look like Radar from MASH you’ll be a lot better off during the winter. As for gloves, some love ‘em, some hate ‘em, personally, I don’t fish in the winter without some sort of mitten or glove… Make sure that you’ve repaired the leaks in your waders, and if you plan on doing a lot of winter fishing consider investing in a studded rubber soled wading boot – snow clings to and builds up on felt but not rubber. Finally get some good polarized sunglasses – there’s no worse glare than that coming off of snow and water in the winter.

When to Go, When to Stay Home
Now that we’ve fully hashed out everything you need for winter fishing consider the timing of your pursuits next in line of importance. The best times to go during the winter are during the middle of a warm front. If it’s been sub zero for 3 weeks, don’t pick the first warm day to head to the river, there will likely be ice flows and frozen river to contend with, neither of which are safe or productive for fishing. I personally try to find days where temps are into the low 40’s, but as long as it isn’t too far below freezing you can fish in spurts if you’re willing to endure the temps. Line will freeze and so will your guides on your rod, so if you go when it’s too cold, plan on picking ice out of your eyelets, there is not a paste or product that works to keep your rod ice free when temps are below freezing. Another word from the wise – check the wind forecast, wind in winter is brutal and really messes up a day of fishing.

Places to Head Besides the Ski Hill
If you are looking at a place to head to during the winter, look at tailwater fisheries first. Tailwater rivers flow out of dams and maintain more consistent and warmer temperatures during the winter, this is key to finding open water during the cold spells. Rivers like the Missouri, Bighorn, Beaverhead, and Madison are all tailwater fisheries and all of them tend to have far less ice on them than their freestone counterparts like the Big Hole, Gallatin, Yellowstone, Boulder etc. Spring Creeks are another good winter option – Livingston, Montana sports 3 of the most well known Spring Creeks in the world and all of them provide an excellent winter fishing option with consistent water temps and rich bug life in the dead of winter. Wherever you do decide to head to during the winter make sure and tell someone where you’re heading and exercise caution when wading – ice flows are dangerous and fishing in the winter by yourself isn’t for the novice angler.

What to Stuff in Your Flybox
If you’ve ever found it difficult to decide what flies to use when you head to the river, then winter will be a welcome change. There’s really only about a half dozen different things you’ll need to take with you depending on where you are going. During the winter a trout’s diet consists mainly of aquatic insects and worms, thus you don’t need to bring along a ton of dry flies. Midges, worms, eggs and maybe some leeches or stoneflies and you’ll round out a fly selection for most rivers in the winter. Don’t over complicate things, bring split shot, indicators, short stout leaders and maybe a flask filled with something that hints of cinnamon…

Winter fishing is oftentimes nothing more than an excuse to drive a long distance on terrible roads to the middle of nowhere where you will find very few other sensible creatures besides a few birds and hopefully some fish. Perhaps I’ll see you out on the water this winter, if I do I’ll happily share a bend of river with you and toast to being a little off!

The Changing of the Guard

2011-11-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

The following is a little article I put together a month or so ago for the folks at Bozeman Magazine, and since it's still fall I figured that I might share a few pics from this year during my favorite season of the year... Cheers.

With summer waning as mornings get crisper and cooler and days shorter, it brings me around to one of my favorite times of the year, fall. Fall conjures up images of overcast drizzly days and Blue Winged Olives buzzing around the back eddies of your favorite fishing haunts all amidst some of the most picturesque backdrops of burnt oranges, golden yellows, and rich crimson reds of the changing tree lines. As autumn settles in there’s a shifting not only in the weather and seasons, there’s a change in trout both physically and behaviorally. For those of us who enjoy streamer fishing, it’s a welcome change as the water temps begin cooling, brown trout put on their feedbags before they begin to chase one another around spawning beds in their annual mating rituals. When the calendar begins reading months that end in “er” it’s a signal that it’s time to grab those big ugly streamers and rods that feel like telephone poles and head to the big rivers in search of big brown trout.

My Favorite Fall Fisheries
If summers are for small creeks and finding new spots to check out, then fall is the time to return to the more familiar big named rivers in search of bigger fish. Not that you can’t occasionally find a big fish or two in a small stream somewhere, but if you’re interested in catching truly massive trout don’t go looking in areas where you can skip a stone across the water… Therefore in the fall I split my time between wading and floating the bigger rivers in the area that have the potential to give up bigger fish on average. The Madison, Yellowstone, and Missouri are the three rivers that come right to mind during the fall months for me in Montana when I want to go try my luck at a truly huge fish. All three rivers are far from a secret. They probably account for well over 30% of fishing pressure in the state of Montana, but all three rivers are popular for good reason as all three have the pedigree for producing large trout.

Now if you aren’t into finding large trout, then there are numerous other places to go and search out excellent hatches of Blue Winged Olives and find smaller eager fish trying to put on some weight before winter and nobody will make fun of you. But if you’re searching out the big fish, then you’d better be prepared to put in your time on the big rivers. The Yellowstone in Paradise Valley in the fall is home to some of the largest fish in the state. Over the years having spoken with long time residents of Livingston and fisheries biologists and spending a fair bit of my own time on the river I’ve come to the conclusion that in the fall as the browns get ready to spawn, the largest concentration of 6lb+ brown trout spend at least part of their time in the water from Grey Owl to 89 bridge. Past that, you’ll have to spend some of your own time on the water figuring out where, because I’m not telling! As for the Madison you have the entire Upper and Lower sections to fish, not even mentioning the section inside of Yellowstone Park that holds a majority of the fish coming out of Quake Lake to spawn in the fall. So you’ll have plenty of places to explore the Madison. As for the Missouri, I’m no expert, and don’t claim to be, but I’ve heard more than few times over the years from old timers that the Beaver Creek area is home to some whoppers and where better to find some big browns than a small section of river between two lakes. But don’t be fooled, there’s plenty of bruisers in other places along this meandering giant body of water because after all the Mo is fed by the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin, which isn’t too shabby of a list of rivers in its own right.

The Thinking Behind Fly Selection
If you’re going to go searching for a needle in a haystack then you might want to read on and find what you should be tossing when looking for these yellow bellied beasts. Personally I’m not going to throw a streamer pattern anymore in the fall that isn’t big enough to entice the appetite of a 24” or larger brown – a friend recently shared a study that indicated that piscivorous (fish eating) species prefer prey that is close to 1/3 their length and will commonly handle fish half of their body length. So, a 6" fly is perfect for an 18" fish and if you start hunting for fish in the 2 foot class, well do the math – 10” long flies aren’t too big, trust me. Now that we’ve covered size, it’s time to address pattern choice and coloration.
One of the most fascinating aspects of fishing is the ability for individuals to personalize their own fly selection and have similar success in nearly identical situations and rivers. What fly selection boils down to is having something that looks like food or strikes the curiosity of the fish at the right place at the right time. There are patterns that have proven themselves effective over the years and just because the pattern is old doesn’t mean it has stopped working. Trout don’t have the ability to “learn” like you or I, but they can become “conditioned” to respond to certain situations with caution.

Therefore if you are angling on heavily fished waters, you might think about tying some of your own flies for something different to show the fish or using a pattern that entices a response rather than looks exactly like a food item. At the beginning of autumn I prefer to fish patterns that bare a resemblance to food sources such as minnows, sculpin or other baitfish because the fish are feeding based on instincts to sustain themselves through the rigors of spawning. The further you get into the fall the more likely it is that brown trout are striking at flies out of aggression and when defending their territory browns will lash out at anything nearing their spawning beds. That is the time to throw the brightly colored patterns that move water and garner the attention of large fish – let your imagination run wild here because the pattern is really up to you at this point.

So as you begin thinking of your fall hunting pursuits, don’t forget about the big rivers and the big fish lurking in them. They’re definitely worth a day or two away from chasing critters in the mountains. Because in my mind there’s nothing quite like the sting of cold water on the hands gripping your trophy brown wrestled from the depths as you take a deep breath and feel the crisp air of fall.

Fall Fishing For Big Boys

2011-10-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

Wow how time flies, I can't believe it's been nearly 2 months since I've had a chance to sit down and babble on about fishing on the BLOG... But I've been busy out on the rivers checking to make sure that the big fish are still in there!

It's finally that time of the year again where I can check and make sure my waders aren't leaking, throw that rain jacket in the boat or backpack and make sure that I have more than shorts and flip flops in the wardrobe. It's fall... That means it's time to go searching for some big dogs.

I was fortunate enough to catch lightning in a bottle this week with two of the bigger fish I've had hands on in quite a while. Best of all was that both fish were caught within 20 minutes of one another in the same pool. My wife seems to think that this means I can stop fishing now for a while... I'm just hungrier to get stick another one!

I've got some stuff in the works here soon to drop in the next day or so for your enjoyment! Until then check these bad boys out and best to you on the water this fall.

Hopper vs. Nocturnal Stone

2011-08-21T08:40:00.001-07:00

It's pretty much just like Alien vs. Predator, really both of them are bad ass... Grasshoppers and the recently more popularized midnight stones that make their way to the rivers of SW Montana every summer make for some damn fine dry fly fishing in August and September. But oftentimes anglers get caught up in the dry fly frenzy and don't stop to think why the fish are popping big pieces of foam with rubberlegs into their mouths all summer long. That's why I thought it would be sweet to let the two face off against one another and let the crowd decide who'd win in a fish fight.

In the red corner we have the common Grasshopper weighing in at under an ounce and in the blue corner we have the Nocturnal Goldenstone weighing in at under an ounce. Ladies and gentlemen, let's get ready to rumble...

Grasshoppers really start showing up in July in large numbers in the grassy farmers fields, and typically when you first see them they are all pretty small, looking about like a size 14 or 16 and rarely are they found around the rivers at that time. Grasshoppers are perfectly content with eating grass in the middle of juicy big lush green fields all summer long if they can, they don't need riverside grassy banks to live. Therefore early on in the summer (late July and early August) you don't find a ton of them around the river just yet, because they are out in the fields where the grass is still green, its only when you begin to see the grass in the farm fields being cut or drying out that hoppers begin making their way closer to the water. Walking around a river out into waist high grass will give you a pretty good idea of just how many more hoppers there are in the fields than there are along river banks early on in the summer, and also is a good gauge for how successful your hopper fishing is going to be based on how many are around the river banks. When the farmers begin cutting hay and grass in August/September you see a big push of grasshoppers towards the river banks and for good reason - grass along the river rarely gets cut and it's always green and luscious. That's when the hopper fishing really gets good - mid to late August and September.

Now, the midnight stone (or nocturnal stone, or whatever you'd like to call it) makes it's emergence on freestone streams and rivers closer to the end of July beginning of August and oftentimes is never seen by the common angler. If you are wade fishing one of your favorite streams in August and you see a bunch of stonefly shucks like the one pictured here, then what you are seeing is not the emergence from June of the Giant Stoneflies, those are midnight stone shucks from recently hatched bugs. Because of the nocturnal emergence of the stoneflies - they come out late and night into the wee hours of the morning and are rarely seen in daylight because they don't fly around like your larger stones - most anglers never lay eyes on the actual insect and so it doesn't get as much fame as the Grasshopper. However, these stoneflies emerge on the rocky banks of the river and hang out in shallow water and inside riffles, preferring to skitter across the top of the water instead of flying, which makes them immediately accessible to trout unlike the Grasshopper that might hang out in the fields for weeks on end before making it to a riverbank. So in terms of immediacy of trout food, advantage Mr. Stonefly, sorry Grasshopper...

Now, Grasshoppers tend to find their way to the river along nice undercut big, long, slow grassy banks that typically hold some nice fat brown trout. Midnight stones hatch around riffles and along rocky shorelines and gravel bars, you won't find them hatching along these same grassy banks. But midnight stones can be fished right through the middle of the river off of gravel bar shelves and elicit big splashy rises. Advantage? I'd call it a push.

Midnight stones really begin to peter out towards the end of August and although you'll see a few shucks here and there in September, their emergence is completely done before fall comes around. Grasshoppers on the other hand get nice and fat and happy into September and if there's a nice long hot Indian Summer you can fish them right on through into October. So the midnight stones are around first, and available to the trout first, but fade out like a flame eventually, hoppers have a little more staying power but are slower to get started. Stones are the pump primer, the super hot chick that gets your blood boiling, and the Grasshopper is there like a reliable girl who sticks around no matter what you do... Advantage? Hmmmm, no comment.

Now from the fisherman's standpoint, we love throwing big chunks of floaty materials with rubberlegs dancing all over the place, both stone and hopper patterns fit this bill, so really it's six one half dozen the other as far as how cool the patterns are. Many of the stonefly patterns have a nice big distinctive white wing to follow down the river making for a nice visual cue, hopper patterns oftentimes sit lower in the water and don't fish as well with a big white wing hanging off of them, so in terms of ease of sight I'd have to say if you can't find a size 6 or 8 grasshopper you're in trouble anyways... What's the most fun is both hoppers and nocturnal stones have a similar silhouette from under the water, both have pronounced legs and antennae, both skitter around, both can be mistaken by fish for the other making pattern selection more personal than important. Advantage? Again, a push.

So I'll let the masses and the trout decide which one they like better. Me, I'll be happy to pitch them both, after all my favorite summer combo on the Yellowstone is a Chubby Golden trailed by a Grand Hopper. Clearly I don't pick favorites...

Saltwater is Probably, No, Definitley Going to Ruin My Life...

2011-07-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

I've had a fair number of my friends ask me about the trip I was lucky enough to get invited on down to the Florida Keys last month and I figured it was time to share some pictures and stories with you all about the trip that ruined my fishing life...

First off, for those of you who know me, I've never been fishing in the Saltwater before, I'm an outdoors kid born and raised in Bozeman, Montana who's been chasing trout and freshwater species his whole life, not a bad way to grow up and I'm not complaining, just stating the facts. I've known for some time that if I ever went Saltwater fishing I would be an absolute wreck of a human being trying anything and everything to get back down there again. I'd always heard that it was a streamer fisherman's mecca with sight fishing to dozens of species of fish in clear water conditions with nice weather and plenty of sunshine - which is quite the concept because I associate good streamer fishing with cloudy overcast days, not bright sunny days. But casting flies at 10-200lb fish in flip flop sandals and board shorts didn't sound like too bad of a deal to me.

So day 1 we fly into Key West hop off the plane, check into our digs and then string up the rods and watch our guides tie some fancy knots with some stuff that reminds me of cable, not leader material. I could hardly wait to get on the water, who cares about humidity and heat, I'm here to fish I was thinking to myself. I was just plain antsy to get in the boat and head out to do some fishing.

The first lesson I learned was that a 12 weight rod with a 2-3 inch long fly is a little bit different than a 9 or 10 weight rod with an 8 inch long coneheaded monstrosity, it was a helluva lot easier to cast! When our guide figured out that I could double haul and put it in a 2ftx2ft box at 90ft he was all smiles, unfortunately what we'd find out later was that just because you can cast doesn't mean you can hook the fish...

The second lesson I learned was that sighting the fish is key, it doesn't matter how far you can cast if you can't spot the fish right away, so I blew a number of opportunities the first day and everyday after just not being able to spot the fish. Fly retrieval on the worm flies that we were fishing for Tarpon was also unlike anything I'd done because the retrieval is in a straight line with consistently non-stop stripping motion that doesn't make the fly jerk, but rather glides through the water like it were on a track. That to me was really weird and I told our guide that he shouldn't try that in Montana because the results would suck.

The first evening we got no follows on anything until we put on our guide Gordon's worm pattern, much different than any worm patterns I've seen in freshwater for sure. Once the fly was switched up we had a few Tarpon look, but no takers. I'm convinced they could smell the rookie Montanan rednecks in the boat. Still I knew after the first few hours on the water that I was going to be hooked, figuratively and literally. Seeing those 80lb+ animals just slicing through the water like ghosts and then disappearing as quickly as they came into sight was crazy, Tarpon are a cool animal.

The next few days were really a blur, the second day we targeted Tarpon all day long on Sunshine point, and just seeing the Tarpon swimming around was incredible. Now what happened next can only be described as some of the purest frustration I have experienced in my life because I'd told myself for the days leading up to the trip that I wasn't going to try and trout set a Saltwater fish... Well guess what, you apparently can take the kid out of Montana but you can't take the Montana out of the kid, and when I had a Tarpon eat my fly 5 feet from the boat and my guide screamed "Set!!!!" I lifted up on the rod and jerked the fly right out of the fishes mouth. What followed out of my mouth isn't fit for any audience of any age, let's just say it would have made Danny Devito wince.

Here's the PG version *edited for time and language* of my buddy Jesse whacking a Tarpon - you can't really see it in the video, but there were approximately 500 Tarpon swimming by in a big long train eating... We stuck one and lost it!

In my defense I told my guide that I'd been ingrained since 3 or 4 years old to lift up on the fly rod whenever my dad or anyone else yelled "Set" at me in the boat. I told our guide "You're going to have to find a different word to yell at me, set isn't going to get us results Trevor." We came to an agreement that "Strip!!" was going to be the safety word for this trip. The next fish that shot in from the group following my fly I strip set and the fish turned right out of the hookset as he veered away from the boat, I was bummed... 2 opportunities that second day and I blew them both. Me 0 - Tarpon 2

The third day I was a little pissed, here we were in Florida and I'd yet to catch a damn fish, and all I'd heard from our guides was how good of a caster and fisherman I was. Now I'm not an ego driven person when it comes to catching fish, because after all the ability to catch fish puts you right up there with an orangutan on the evolutionary scale of things, not too impressive as far as I'm concerned, but, I wanted to drive a hook into something on my trip, I couldn't go home without at least hooking a few fish. So we told our guide that we wanted to go put a bend in the rod. It was determined that we would chum up some sharks and pitch some gear at them - I'm an admittedly terrible spin fisherman, I haven't done it much since my early teenage years when I would have rivaled Bill Dance. After 20-30 minutes of me throwing the spin rod anywhere from 70 feet over the head of the fish or 2 feet off the boat our guide handed me back a fly rod and told me to save everyone the trouble and just stick to tossing around flies, sounds good to me I thought.

Later on the afternoon of the third day we were posted up on a sandbar waiting on some fish to push up the deep channel to the outside of the boat chumming for sharks. Seeing the fish cruise from about 300yds out up the sandflat pushing water the entire way was one of the neatest experiences I've ever witnessed on the water. After casting unsuccessfully at nearly a half dozen sharks, we smeared some eggs on the orange piece of feathered garbage on the end of my line and dangled it in front of the face of a large shark until he couldn't resist the dance any longer. What ensued next can only be described as chaos... Unbenknownst to me I had hooked into a 100lb+ Lemon Shark and my fly was tied onto 250lb steel braided nylon coated wire, I wasn't going to be able to put too much pressure on this fish and pop it off, this fish was going to have to come to the boat. The problem, I had hooked the fish on a 9wt. After about 10 minutes of the fish running me into my backing repeatedly I decided that I'd ask what the hell I was supposed to do now. The response from my guide who was having a ball with the whole ordeal, "You've got a bend in your rod now don't you." Well said Trevor, well said.

No glory shots ensued, because with a pissed off fish at over 5 feet long I wasn't getting into the water with a fresh chum line with any shark regardless, and we weren't bringing the fish into the boat. We did manage a few blurry shots and some decent pictures of me sweating like a pig at auction through the battle, and one nice picture of a big shark fin out of the water as my rod is completely taco'd. The rest of the day I relaxed and pitched at a few more sharks for fun but to no avail. The only other highlight was when we were cruising some back country shoreline looking for permit and we happened to spot one crashing crabs up in the shallows making quite the ruckus. I planted a cast within a foot of the fish's head, but on the first strip I stuck a piece of sea rock and couldn't get my fly back, Permit Shot #1 Blown.

Roughly 15 minutes after the first fly debacle we came up on what our guide described to me as "two giant f'ing pie plates in the water" and he repeatedly asked me if I could see the fish. My reply, nope all I see is two sharks in the water, well I can tell you that when these two giant Permit turned sideways, I saw them. Like two giant hubcaps on a big rig, they sliced through the water and gave me the fin, Permit Shots #2 & #3 Blown. Oh well, there's always more sharks to hook and rays to try and snag I thought to myself.

The 4th day rolled around and we set out to catch nothing but Tarpon, it was time to hook one of these majestic beasts, and I was going to do it or I wasn't going to leave for home. The conditions for us were less than ideal, the wind was blowing at a consistent clip putting lots of chop on the water, the overcast skies made spotting the fish tough and on top of that the water was stained, or at least that's what they were telling us rednecks. After nursing a Key West morning flu and watching my buddy take shots at about 12 different schools of Tarpon rolling by, I decided I'd better stomach it and take a shot myself. The first pod that rolled by as I was standing on the casting deck looked happy and were skimming the surface feeding or at least that's what it looked like. I made 3 casts and had 3 fish follow and one even looked as if he was going to eat the fly when my guide yelled at me to recast. I obliged and pulled the fly right out of the mouth of a Tarpon about to eat 10 feet off the bow of the boat. Bummer. I handed off the rod and continued my nap on the boat for another hour or so until I decided to take another shot at the Silver. The next shot I had was at a small group of about 10 fish, I threw the fly out ahead of the pack and stripped nice and slow and even, mostly because I was tired and hungover, I saw the fish come up and crest the surface and suck down my worm and I strip set as hard as I could into it's face.

The sum total of all of my fishing experiences in my life up and to this point hadn't prepared me for what happened next. The only previous life experience I could draw from was the one time as a kid I thought it might be fun while casting at my dad's flyshop to hook a car with a fly and see what would happen to the reel - that was an incredible experience for the 20 seconds as the line sizzled off the reel before the reel gave up and the line snapped. That was pretty much exactly what happened when I stuck that Tarpon in the face, things came unglued. I would later learn that apparently when you jam them in the face as hard as you can, they jump and run trying to get away from you - my knuckle was sore for a week afterwards, but it was all worth it. Watching the Tarpon jump up into the air no more than 50 feet in front of my face was a feeling and a mental image I won't soon forget. So what if he shook the hook on the second jump, I was satisfied.

The rest of the day was spent mentally trying to shake what had just happened and concentrate on hooking another fish. Unfortunately most of the rest of the day was uneventful and included lots of single and double Tarpon swimming around and not eating. At this point I considered my trip successful, I'd put a silver beast on the end of a rod and felt the sizzle of an 80lb animal on a fly reel. But the fifth day was going to be a blast.

Our final day on the flats in Key West was met with a late morning breakfast and a trip back out to look for Tarpon first thing. I had grown bored of waiting on fish to show up. There wasn't enough beer in the cooler for another day of marginal waiting around as far as I was concerned, especially since I wasn't going to be heading back down to Key West anytime soon. So my buddy and I told our guide Kiel that we wanted to head back into the back country and take some shots at some fish in the shallower mangroves. Kiel was excited and took us back to a few of his favorite spots, but warned us that normally he would have been up at the crack of dawn to fish these spots, not 1'o'clock in the afternoon.

The next few hours were my favorite of the trip - we were sight fishing sharks, rays, snapper, needlefish, barracuda, and baby tarpon in 2 ft deep crystal clear water. The catching wasn't fantastic as it was nearly 100 degrees outside with no wind and lots of weary fish in shallow water. But we lacked in catching we made up for in beers and 70ft casts at approaching sharks - check this video out, that's a little bull shark chasing down a fly for the better part of 50 ft.

It was at this point that I knew my freshwater cherry had been popped and I'd have to find my way back to the Keys again sometime, even if it meant selling all my personal belongings and packing my wife and daughter in a suitcase and driving.

Yes, I'll be back at some point I know it, until then, I'll have to go drop a boat on the Yellowstone when it clears...

Oh No, The Fishing Has All Gone to Carp...

2011-07-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't read or don't live in Bozeman and hence don't get a chance to read our local fare, the Bozeman Magazine, here's a little article I penned for a recent issue, enjoy!

So for those of you who pay attention to my ramblings from time to time, you’ve surely heard me tout the wonderful golden exotic treasure that is only so fittingly named the Common Carp. Every year when it starts to get a little warmer outside and the sun gets a little brighter and the rivers start to rise and the fishing options get a little limited I turn to finding Carp in all sorts of fun places. Usually these places aren’t exactly “picturesque” although there’s some nice scenery on the horizon at times. Carp are typically found wallowing in muck and muddy areas that when stepped in give off a stench that is similar to decaying fecal matter… yeah it smells that good.

Sometimes when I’m wallowing around in this muck in sandals or even wading boots I feel a tad bit violated. When you look down at your feet and they are covered in what could only be described as some primordial ooze and you smell all the rotting carcasses of Carp all strewn along the shoreline, then you know you are in for a special fishing treat. These aren’t the kind of areas where you would expect to go and find a pristine trout stream fisherman hanging out in, but, hey things that put a big bend in the end of your rod tend to take us addicts to some strange places. The first time you see a big shadow lurking 60 feet out and you plant a cast near it and your fly disappears and your line starts sizzling off your reel, you’ll understand the draw.

Thankfully in addition to providing some afternoon fun when a lot of our favorite rivers are all blown out, Carp can provide some solitude and some challenging stalking around popular fishing areas. One of the main draws for fishing for the Common Carp, at least for myself, is the ability to single out individual or small groups of fish and attempt to fool them with something that resembles a food source. Unlike trout that typically exhibit very reclusive social behaviors, Carp tend to live, eat and swim in groups and so it can make finding and targeting individual fish that much more challenging. Unlike trout that typically don’t spend a lot of time in large groups, Carp will pile into back bays and shoreline feeding areas by the hundreds, providing multiple shots at tailing fish.

Whoever said that Carp are stupid and will eat anything has never fished for them in trout country with a fly rod… They can be as selective as any game species on a fly that you’ve ever encountered, and can provide some of the most exciting opportunities to stalk feeding and tailing fish. Having been a trout fisherman my whole life and never having spent any time on the flats fishing for bonefish or permit, Carp are really the closest thing to a flats fishing experience that I have personally encountered. I can only imagine how nice it must be to find white sandy beaches and crystal clear oceanic waters to stalk in. I spin my trade in the dirt and grime with miles of grassy and rocky shoreline with the added wonderful stench of decaying fish… So it takes a special person to really enjoy Carp fishing.

The typical food sources of Carp range from seeds and floating and submerged vegetation to more familiar trout foods like leeches, crayfish, damsels, mayflies, caddis, stoneflies and baitfish depending on what is available. A grocery list like this alone should make any trout fisherman excited, not to mention a fish that isn’t discriminating about its diet and grows often into the double digit pound range – providing big fish opportunities nearly every time out. But fortunately for Carp addicts like myself, lots of trout fishermen turn their nose up at the scaly, slimy, stinky, rubber lipped golden beast.

Where to go to find Carp isn’t something that you’re going to readily find guys who Carp fish willing to share. There are certainly places that have been well written about by fishermen around Montana including the Missouri river outside of Townsend and nobody thinks that’s a secret anymore. But some of the most exhilarating fishing for Carp is found on lakes, reservoirs and backyard ponds and sloughs with less recognizable names because it allows you the opportunity to stalk the beast on foot. Fishing from a boat for Carp is fun, don’t get me wrong, and sight fishing from skiffs with casting platforms is a blast and probably will remind any saltwater nut of bonefish flats. But seeking out your favorite haunt will probably require you visiting some bait shops, perusing the local dirtball fly fishing hangouts, and maybe even making a few phone calls to the local FWP offices to find if there are any reservoirs or ponds in your area that have some Carp in them. But the best Carp haunts oftentimes will be simply found by accident and when you do find one of those you won’t be giving it up to anyone but your closest fishing buddies.

Another aspect of what makes Carp great game is that they don’t require fancy waders, expensive boats, exclusive fly rods and reels or the latest in fishing fashion… Carp fishing can be enjoyed in flip flops, beer t-shirts and a cheap 7 weight rod with some flies that wouldn’t fool the least discerning trout. That being said, you’d better bring your A game because these aren’t stupid fish by any stretch. Presentation is paramount in Carpin’ and if you don’t put the fly where it needs to be when it needs to be there then you can forget about catching Carp… Leading the target is perhaps the most important aspect of fishing for the golden beast and if you can’t time out your fly drop and depth in relation to where the Carp are heading you will struggle. But if you can put it all together and stand the stench then you just might become a Carp addict after all.

Blatant Salmonfly Teaser

2011-06-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I figured that since everyone seemed to enjoy the last article that made it into Bozeman Magazine, I'd share my little blurb on Salmonfly Fishing with all of you! Hell, at least it's better than complaining about the weather here in Bozeattle...

The Salmonfly Hatch: More than Myth and Lore…

For many fishermen around the world the famous Montana Salmonfly hatch is as much about myth and lore as it is about actually getting a chance to fish “The Hatch.” Many will spend a lifetime dreaming and reading up on the hatch only to travel thousands of miles to miss it by a few days or a few miles of river. For those of you who have experienced this with utter disappointment, I apologize in advance for the remainder of the article.

For those of us who crazily follow the hatch like a rabid sports fan follows his favorite baseball team all year long, the hatch is much less about myth and lore and is mostly all about getting big fish up on big flies in some of the most heavily fished stretches of river in the state of Montana. If you’re looking for peace, solitude and some alone time with a few trout, then look for another hatch! But if you don’t mind calling in to your favorite fly shop 3 times a day for 2 weeks straight to find out where the bugs are on the Big Hole or Madison or Gallatin or Yellowstone, then well, this is the hatch for you (sorry Missoula, I don’t get too excited about Rock Creek…)

Really, hitting the Salmonfly hatch is all about timing, a little bit of knowledge, and some boots on the ground so to speak – never ever trust that you’re going to hear the exact starting time of the hatch from anyone else. Even the most reliable sources are going to give you yesterday’s news, sometimes you’re going to have to just go with instinct and input and go for it! So with that in mind, there are some things that you can look for in timing your pursuits on most of the big named rivers. Following is my own personal Salmonfly timeline that I use in my fishing pursuits of the Pteronarcys Californica.

The first rivers in the state that will get a good Salmonfly hatch on them will be the rivers around Missoula like Rock Creek, and that’s the best gauging point for when the rest of the hatches will begin popping on the rivers that I like to fish. Once things get going around Missoula you can bet it won’t be too long until the Big Hole starts to see the big helicopters take flight. Using the Big Hole as your barometer you can expect that within a week or so things are going to start on the Lower Madison, and although the hatch isn’t what it used to be on the Lower due to years of siltation and habit degradation you can still get some big fish to come up and suck down a big stonefly dry… Then you can monitor the hatch on the lower stretch of the Madison because once it makes its way up through Beartrap Canyon you can almost count out a week for the bugs to begin crawling out around Ennis. Typically around that same time you can find Salmonflies swarming on the Gallatin in the canyon, which can keep you occupied while you wait for the Upper Madison to get good. Finally the Salmonflies take flight over on the Yellowstone about the time that the Upper Madison is in full swing, usually sometime after July 4th in a typical year. Drought years aside, you will have a tough time finding fishable water for the Salmonfly hatch on the Yellowstone until the hatch gets up by Gardiner, after which it continues on through the Yellowstone in the Park for a couple more weeks. If you’re lucky you can get a Cutthroat to sip a big stone high up on the Yellowstone in the Park in the first week of August, after which you’re going to have to wait for the next year...

With your timeline in hand the next thing that you can do to figure out what’s going on with the hatch is to put some tires on the road and do some fishing and flip some rocks over. Now, this is as good of an excuse to get out of work and head to the river as I get – looking to see where the stonefly nymphs are by flipping some rocks and looking for the big black and brown armored critters. Without getting too scientific there’s a good way to tell if the hatch is close – if you’re flipping rocks 20-30 feet out from the bank, the bugs are a little ways off still from hatching, if you’re flipping over rocks right on the bank and they’re crawling with big stonefly nymphs, then you can bet the hatch is going to pop off in the next few warm days. Since the nymphs start their journey from the middle of the river to the banks you can get some excellent pre-hatch nymph fishing in. Some folks even argue that the nymphing before the hatch is better than fishing the dries themselves. If you like staring at a bright indicator rather than watching a 20” plus brown trout crash a big ‘ol size 4 dryfly, you might need your brain examined, but you can certainly have all the pre dry fly nymphing to yourself because you won’t see me out there.

Finally without giving away all of my secrets I’ll leave you with a few tidbits to chew on before this year’s Salmonfly hatch. If you want the best fishing during the Salmonfly hatch, don’t be afraid to head out early. Everyone will tell you that the bugs don’t get active until the afternoon, but the fish don’t care, they will eat them first thing in the morning, I promise. Fishing behind the hatch by 5 or 6 days can be as productive if not more so than fishing right through the middle of the emergence itself – fish don’t forget what a steak sandwich looks like. Finally, stick with the dry fly, the fishing can be spotty and if you take it off you’ll be assured that the dry fly fishing will get good just as you put that split shot and indicator on!

Playing in the Mud

2011-05-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a little article I recently penned for Bozeman Magazine and given the rising waters around Montana I thought it appropriate to share...

Oftentimes the first thing that all fishermen think of when the rivers begin to swell and the waters turn the color of a cup of latte is to stay home or find a lake to fish. A common and forgivable mistake for sure. But for those of us who can’t stay away from streams and rivers for too long, there’s hope, there’s a way if you have the will. Now before we dive into the what, when, where and how, I’ll preface things and say, playing in the mud although fun, sometimes isn’t as productive as heading to some local ponds or lakes. However, it does have its advantages and can provide some solitude on some places where you would be remiss the rest of the year to find yourself alone on a stretch of blue ribbon trout stream.

The first thing to know when heading to the river when things are off color and high is this: Safety First. One cannot be too careful during times of high and turbid waters, and I’ll say this with extra emphasis – if things are flooding and rivers are running twenty times their normal size, maybe playing around isn’t a good idea. In fact, really what we’re talking about here is fishing rivers when they are off color, not necessarily when they are directly in the middle of runoff, but slightly after things are starting to come down some or right before things really blow out – look for when water clarity is still in the 1 foot or less range of visibility. That’s when you can head to some of the local rivers and have the whole place to yourself and catch some fish too!

Now that we’ve covered the safety and a little bit of the when, it’s time to take a look at the where factor when considering which rivers are suited for fishing during the pre and post runoff periods. Some rivers are better suited to hold fish in places that you can access easily, others require a drift boat and a little more knowledge of the water and what are safe floating levels, when in doubt contact your local fly shop to figure out if things are safe or not. One river that always comes to my mind when talking about fishing when things are off color is the Big Hole. The Big Hole isn’t immune to runoff, but it does typically clear quicker and maintains fishability even when things are high and less than a foot of visibility. Rowing this river isn’t for the faint of heart when it’s flowing at over 4,000CFS, but it can be done with proper equipment and rowing skills and the rewards can be big. When river flows start cooking the fish on this body of water tend to congregate tight to the banks, most of the time within a foot of the structure and in any back eddies and softer calm water on the inside of big quick bends of the river. These are the areas that fish will find solace when flows begin to creep towards flood stage, and are the same places that you will find fish congregating in after flows initially begin to subside but before they reach normal levels again. Once flows have established themselves at normal seasonal levels fish will again begin to spread out and you can begin using your standard fishing techniques.

Equipped with this knowledge, when it gets muddy the best angle of attack is to grab a stout rod, a short heavy leader (typically no longer than 4 foot and tapered to 0X), a sinking tip fly line and a handful of gaudy feathered and furred streamer concoctions and aim for these areas of holding water. Floating the Divide Canyon during the famed Salmonfly hatch might yield upwards of 100 boats on the river, however, fishing the infamous muddy water usually only finds a couple of brave or unknowing souls, pretty much the river will be empty. This is my personal favorite setup for the Big Hole, however this technique can be applied on other bodies of water as well. Another such favorite of mine is Beartrap Canyon right before and sometimes even during runoff. As I mentioned safety earlier, I’ll bring this up again, if you are not comfortable wading around the edges of the river when things are high, don’t go. But if you’re conscious of your surroundings, Beartrap can yield some excellent results when things are high and muddy. The water where fish will be holding is going to be tight to the banks and downstream of large boulders where there are soft pockets of water, and the fishing is best done on foot. Short casts and short deliberate strips of the fly are going to yield the best results. Don’t try and cast too far or your line and fly will go ripping downstream.

Before trudging into the water, I prefer to pick all of the pockets along the banks that are easily cast to, it’s safe and it’s a lot more productive as well. Again, the plan of attack is going to be streamer patterns. The reasoning behind this is that attempting to nymph in these small pockets of water is difficult at best, and with high flows typically you can’t keep your indicator or flies in an area long enough to elicit a strike. Plus what you are really doing with a streamer is satisfying the “if I have to expend energy X to get food Y, Y has to be greater than X” equation that all animals adhere to – this just happens to have the added factor of if they are going to strike in muddy water, you’d better give them something they can see. Put these tactics into practice the next time you’re thinking of bagging a day because it’s too muddy, who knows, maybe you’ll catch one of those fish of a lifetime and you can proudly tell your friends you caught it playing in the mud!

Gear vs. Flies - I Like Both...

2011-05-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

So nearly my entire month of April was spent fighting bronchitis and what was probably pneumonia as well, instead of fish. Which all I'd like to say about that is capital BS... But considering that we've been stuck in winter in Montana since October, I guess I'll console myself with the oft uttered and never believable phrase of "you didn't miss much."

So I got to spend a fair amount of time playing around at the fly tying vise and making an absolute mess of things in the guest bedroom (my man cave). What came out of this was nothing short of magic, I mean I was definitely consulting with Charlie Sheen on some of this stuff, hello winning! Sometimes the lack of fishing in one's life can lead to anticipation and some excellent creative juices. The only thing that kept me from ending it all was a Pike trip to Fort Peck at the end of the month, and believe me, that was all I had going for me in April fishing wise...

We hired a guide for a couple of days to show us around Fort Peck and considering that the reservoir has more shoreline than two times the coastline of California, trying to figure something that vast all out on your own sounded a little daunting for this river fisherman. Unfortunately for us, nobody told us (see the guide) that our guide had never guided fly fishermen on the lake. It seems that someone that has mastered fishing in 10-40ft plus worth of water with crankbaits, doesn't automatically know what you want to do with a fly rod... There is a bit a of a learning curve.

The first day was beautiful, 65 degrees and sunny, warm enough for this kid to take his shirt off (don't worry there are no pictures of this, that would require a special lens to take the glare off the polar bear white sheen off my skin). But as nice as the weather was, trying to find a needle in a haystack or a pike on a fly in a lake where everyone trolls crank baits was difficult to say the least. We chucked big ugly junk for 6 hours to no avail, finally breaking down we decided that maybe in muddy water they might eat some Rapalas a little better. Well, at least we were right about that. Day 1: Flies - 0, Crankbaits - 6... FML

Day two was a little different, we figured if we couldn't stick fish on flies we'd go troll some gear in deeper water for lake trout, this proved even more fruitless, and so when noon time rolled around and the water temps in the bays started to warm a bit I was hard lining for a little fly throwing for those toothy critters. So we headed back into some likely places to find pike - the first swing through one of the bays we ran crankbaits, managed to stick two fish, one got tangled in a swamped tree, the other one sliced through the firewire we had tied onto the Rapala like a hot knife through butter. At this point in the day it was Crankbaits - 0 Flies - Not Even Tied On Yet... So after losing both of those fish, one of which was easily in the 10-15lb range, all I wanted to do was throw some bunny fur around some shallow water in hopes that something might oblige and swallow a perch pattern whole.

After doing enough trolling to last me for the rest of my life I asked our guide to take us to some shallower back bays where we might see some Pike up and spawning - we got one part of that equation satisfied - shallow. Unfortunately there wasn't enough clarity for me to see my fly 6" underneath the surface - this trip was beginning to wreak of failure. All that was going to save it was a little bit of luck, and all I could think was that if we fished something wild enough and put it in the right place that I just might feel a tug on the end of the line... After letting our guide call the shots for the first day and a half I asked him if he would begin cruising us a little closer to shore in some really shallow weeded areas with some small inlets trickling in. Money.

Now we only stuck one 30" Pike on flies, but all I can say is it felt like I won the lottery when our guide told us that during his talks with his other guides that had taken out fly fishermen nobody else had stuck anything on flies... Final Fish Tally: Gear - 8, Flies - 1. But I can tell you this, I'll be back to even the score later.

Knocking the Dust Off

2011-03-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

I've been out quite a bit this year already and most of it has been to fine tune my bobber watching skills... Although there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that during the winter and early spring months that nymph fishing is the most productive way to catch fish, it can also be one of the most mind numbing activities after a couple of months of doing nothing else. From midges, to worms, to eggs, crayfish, stoneflies, caddis, mayflies, I don't care what it is, it all looks the same to me regardless of what it looks like to the fish. All I see is a big pink, orange or chartreuse indicator floating on the surface!

Now I won't complain about catching fish, I love putting fish in the hand, even when it's freezing cold out - something in the soul lets you feel ok about freezing cold hands that smell of fish. But by about the end of March every year, I'm really ready to do something different, and this year is no different, after a couple of great months of nymphing it was time to do something different.

So the other week when we headed over to the Beaverhead to do a little fishing, I decided enough was enough and put the nymphing stick away after 80" plus worth of fish to hand (funny how that makes it easier to try something more "out of the box") and picked up my streamer rod and began to work out the streamer fishing kinks that come from nymphing for too long.

So instead of drooling while staring down the pink dot all day, I was treated to a few big fish chowing down on a big black leech slowly stripped through all of my favorite little streamer spots... That alone would have made it all worth the trip, but I decided after a half dozen fish to hand that I would try something even a little stranger, skate some mice...

Now skating/stripping mice is not a new concept by any stretch, and there's a lot of Alaska guys that would probably scoff at my meager success, but hey for a guy fishing mid March in Montana, I'll take a few fish looking at something that I'm swinging and stripping on the surface that isn't pink and circular and really reminds me of a bobber! Mice fishing was awesome, and after some inspiration from a few nuts who come through the shop (nuts is an affectionate term reserved for other people as crazy about meat fishing for brown trout as I am) I decided it was time to give it a go.

Be warned, what followed isn't going to go down in the annals of fishing lore as anything spectacular, after all the day ended with no mice planted firmly in any trout’s faces. But the day did end with me grinning from ear to ear like a freshly lobotomized crazed idiot who had just seen the future and it was good. After 1-2 hours of skating mice around on every likely spot, I got my first big whack in a deep long slow pool off right off of a solid wood lined bank.

That was all it took and I beat the water to a froth for the remaining hours of the day in search of more of these elusive mice eaters. I found 3 more, but none of them were able to swallow all 4 inches of hairy undulating meat. Bummer. But I'll put that one in the win column for sure. March, 4 mice chasers, one great big success of not staring at an indicator all day long...

When Enough Is Enough: HB309...

2011-03-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

This BLOG never has been and never will be a podium or pulpit to spew political rants and raves, but when my livelihood and lifestyle is threatened, I feel it necessary to call a spade a spade.

House Bill 309 that is currently up for hearing in the Montana Senate is a clear example of what is at best a misguided bill seeking to clarify an issue that needs no clarification - "what is a ditch?" and at the worst, an attempt to end around the 25+ year old Stream Access Law that was put forth by men like my father and Mazurek and many other like minded outdoorsmen and was agreed upon by such varying interests as TU, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and the Stockgrowers Association and Farm Bureau. These same groups are now at odds with one another over the current piece of garbage that has been put forth in HB309, clearly something is afoul here...

House Bill 309 whether intended or not will erode Montana's Stream Access Law and will have far reaching and long lasting negative implications for not only Stream Access but Montana's Tourism Industry and Small Businesses sector.

And with that I'm off of my soap box - except to leave you with some ammunition that you might want to bring to the attention of our Governor of Montana and any of your own local representatives... following an open letter to our Governor and Elected Officials of MT:

I write you as a businessman and outdoorsman with grave concerns about House Bill 309 to “Clarify prohibition on recreational access to ditches.” Although the original intentions of this bill may have been benign, the unintended consequences are clear and that is the slippery legal slope that this legislation will introduce, and negative impacts that it will have for Montana’s Stream Access Law and the state’s Tourism Industry. The language and legalese within HB309 fails to provide any clarity on what constitutes a ditch and rather introduces a broad definition of recreational use of waterways that is open for legal interpretation. I’d like for you to be aware of the consequences this will have on a large number of small businesses.

I would like to make you aware that HB309 potentially will have devastating effects on my own business, a fly shop in Bozeman, Montana, as well as many of the service and support businesses across the state were it to be enacted. As the manager of a small business that has been thriving throughout this downturned economy, I’m very concerned with how this will impact tourism and the perspective that travelers will have of our state if this legislation is allowed to go into effect. The fact of the matter is that many people come to Montana during the summers to recreate on our rivers and streams, and they help support local businesses from restaurants, to motels, to bars and boutique stores etc. By shutting down recreational access by passing HB309, we will see a decrease in the number of visitors, the length of their stay and the frequency of their visits. During a time when budget shortfalls are predicted and taxes are needed, why pass a bill that has the potential to do harm to Montanan’s and small businesses?

From our viewpoint as a small business involved in outdoor recreation and retail, this bill is already affecting customer perception of our stream access laws and I’ve received complaints from various out of state and in state customers who are worried that they won’t be able to recreate on our rivers and streams in the same way that they have before. For the media and the general public perception is reality and if you shut down the access on some rivers, the national media will run with it and all that will be heard is “Montana’s Streams and Rivers are shut down to recreation.” Furthermore it could lead on down the line to lots of unnecessary, cumbersome and quite frankly anti-small business litigation from private landowners that would impact a wide variety of businesses locally and statewide specifically in our state’s Tourism industry.

I take specific issue with Section 2. Section 23-2-302, MCA, that is amended to read in below sections:

(c) except for impoundments or water diverted from a natural water body where the owner has provided public access, the recreational use of water diverted from a natural water body, including:
(i) the diverted water from the point of diversion to the point where the waters return to the natural water body from which the waters were diverted;
This opens up for interpretation the legality of floating large side channels of major waterways on rivers such as the Big Hole Jefferson and Yellowstone Rivers – this is the lifeblood of our business.

(ii) water bodies created at least in part by waters diverted from a natural water body where the diverted water is the principal source of water in the water body; or
This opens up for interpretation the legality of fishing entire rivers such as the Beaverhead, or the Ruby, or the Bitteroot, and also calls into question what happens in a drought year when irrigation removes the majority of a waterway such as on the Big Hole or Jefferson. Then is the entire river system declared illegal to recreate on?

(iii) water diverted to access points of ditches and other conveyances for the principal purpose of facilitating irrigation; or
(g)(d) use of a streambed as a right-of-way for any purpose when water is not flowing therein in the streambed.
This calls into question in drought years what might normally have water flowing through it is thus illegal to recreate on because of the lack of water due to seasonal drought conditions? What then becomes the legal precedence in the future were that streambed to have water flow through it again in a normal water year?

4) The right of the public to make recreational use of surface waters does not grant any easement or right to the public to enter onto or cross private property in order to use such those waters for recreational purposes.
This would allow private landholders to erect fences, dam structures, and other manmade obstructions in the public waterways to prevent passage of the public through these waterways rendering them unusable for recreation and clearly violates the Stream Access Law that allows for departure from the high water mark to pass around man made obstructions and return with immediacy to the high water mark area. This is extremely problematic for small bodies of water like the Ruby and Beaverhead rivers that pass through contentious privately held surrounding lands.

Representative Welborn’s bill is a classic example of a solution in search of a problem. It will lead to more litigation, less clarity, and will hurt Montana’s Tourism Industry and Small Businesses.

The Best Western Trout Rod Ever?

2011-02-14T22:14:00.000-08:00

Whenever new rods come out from any rod company that I respect, I get a little curious… When it happens to be a new rod built on the line of the overwhelmingly popular Winston Boron Series, I had to get my hands on it and take it for a spin. But, when I heard that Winston was replacing the BIIX (B2X) series, my first reaction was “No, don’t ruin a good thing!” After I heard some of the initial reactions from several of the rod designers, I was salivating to get my hands on one. The BIIIX (B3X) was described as everything from “velvety smooth” to “crisp in the hands and on the water” to “the Best Rod Winston has Ever Built” etc… I knew I had to have one.

My First Thoughts: I waited patiently while all of the store models floated into the shop and casted them a fair bit when the weather cooperated and I was impressed by the performance of the production rods right off the bat. It was quicker than the B2X but not so quick that it didn’t have that trademark soft Winston tip. I casted a 9’ 5wt, a 9’6wt and a 9’ 8wt and I was surprised by how consistent the action was across the lineup – the 5 felt like a 5 and the 6 like a 6, and the 8 was much more powerful than the old B2X 8wt. But I’ve never believed that you can take a bunch of rods out and line them up in a parking lot and tell which one is going to fish better, after all unless you are deranged you actually fish with your fly rod, not stand around casting it in some abandoned field… So when my new B3X arrived in January I took the next day off to line it up out on the Lower Madison for a little “research.” Let me tell you, it was well worth the wait.

Comparisons: I believe it’s important to have something to gauge a rod against if you’re going to talk about a new rod series, so I’ll use comparisons to the Winston B2X series for the remainder of this review.

The B2X was and still is a great fly rod. It’s been the best selling rod in the history of RL Winston Rod Co. and for good reason; it was lighter, smoother and a fair bit faster than previous Winston offerings and was easy for anyone from a novice to a highly skilled guide to cast. The problem with the B2X was that certain rod lengths and models in the lineup had a very different feel from one another. For instance the 8’6” 4wt was an entirely different rod than the 9’ 4wt and the 9’ 5wt for a lot of folks wasn’t nearly as crisp or smooth casting as the 9’ 6wt. There were rods that just didn’t fit perfectly into the B2X lineup that was supposed to be a little faster and quicker than their old offerings. The 7 and 8 weight rods were a little too soft for a lot of people’s likings and you had a hard time punching them through the wind or throwing large or heavy flies with them. The B2X left something to be desired and there was definitely some room for improvement in different areas of performance – enter the B3X.
So the B2X was a little “limp” in a few of the rod line weights and lengths – in my opinion especially the 9’ 5wt B2X – and I was curious to see how the 9’ 5wt B3X would compare to its older brother. The B3X 9’ 5wt weighed in at 2 5/8 ounces compared to the B2X which weighed in at 2 3/4 ounces. So in terms of light in the hand, the B3X wins by a hair, but it’s nothing that is going to wow anyone, and especially not anything you’ll notice casting all day. Both rods were listed in the Winston catalogs as “FAST” action, but immediately upon picking up the 9’ 5wt B3X you can tell that there is a lot more power within the new generation of boron and graphite and the rod just feels quicker. The B2X 5wt was very limp through the 3rd and 4th sections of the rod and had a lot of accuracy problems with tip wobble in my opinion. At longer distances the 9’ 5wt B2X was difficult to control because of these issues and it just felt sort of sloppy in a range fishing situations where you needed to accurately deliver the goods at a distance of over 45 feet. So I decided to put them side by side and see if they had corrected these problems in the new B3X. Casting the rods side by side it was clear that the B3X had much better balance right up and into the tip section. Most importantly the tip wobble with 50+ foot casts was nearly indiscernible if it was even there at all. The rod designers had clearly worked on this issue at length, because now this rod is truly one of the finest 5 weights on the market. The B3X isn’t a telephone pole though by any stretch, it still has some bend in the tip, and from a fisherman’s standpoint that’s appreciated – Winston rods are built for fishing, not for winning a parking lot rod cast off and that soft tip is important for setting the hook and protecting tippet while playing fish. Kudos to Winston for figuring out how to balance the two very opposite needs for power and delicacy, it’s a feat no other rod company accomplishes as well as they have done with the B3X.

But, I really wanted to see how the 6 weight B3X would stand up to what I believed was the absolute finest All Around Western Trout rod ever built, the 9’ 6wt B2X. I have fished that 6wt B2X on more rivers in the State of Montana than any other rod and it’s always been the first rod I put in my vehicle when heading anywhere. It was my all around, do it all fishing tool, and was easily my favorite rod to fish. So since I now had both the B3X and B2X in hand, I figured I’d line both rods up and take them to the river for some real on the water testing…

On The Water: If had one major complaint about the B2X it was this: when loaded up with several heavy larger nymphs (size 6-12) and some split shot (BB’s to 3/0) and a strike indicator, the rod just didn’t have the power to push all of that weight through any wind or for distances more than 15 feet. In fact, the B2X 6wt has a tendency to collapse a loop if pushed too hard with just about anything on the end of the line. But that’s a fairly minor complaint for a rod that would handle a single size 4 streamer in one hole and then when a BWO hatch came off delicately deliver a size 18 mayfly imitation to a rising trout. So I had to see if the B3X would hold up in these areas as well as the B2X did, and hopefully see if it performed a little better with some of the double nymph rigs that I like to throw on our larger western rivers …

Finding The Right Line For Fishing, Not Casting: As I mentioned above, the B2X just didn’t have the power to deliver heavy cumbersome payloads that a lot of nymphing situations require. So when I loaded up my B3X with a balloon style indicator, 2 BB split shot, a size 6 weighted crayfish pattern, trailed by a heavy size 8 wire worm, I was fully expecting to tax the rod to see how it handled. I loaded the rod up with the same line that I used on the B2X with great success – Airflo Ridge Distance Taper WF6 – and trudged down to one of my favorite holes on the Madison. My initial reaction trying to cast this setup was a fair bit of frustration, the B3X just wasn’t loading perfectly with all that weight and just like the B2X I was having a tough time delivering the flies at a longer distance. So I went back to my vehicle and loaded a GPX 6wt line onto the rod to see if that would do the trick. Fantastic. This solved the problem and after re-rigging and tossing around the heavy nymph rig for a couple of hours I can say that it was definitely the line, not the rod, that was at issue. After having tossed the B3X with a few different lines, I like both the Rio Grand and the SA GPX tapers the best on it, simply because they have a little more mass than your standard line and help with turning over larger payloads and loading the rod properly down into the more powerful butt section. Now, if you don’t plan on nymphing heavy stuff on this rod, you’ll probably be fine with the Airflo Ridge Distance or a Rio Gold, but personally I’ll stick with the GPX.

Roll Casting And Mending: A good fly rod should be able to perform in varied casting and fishing situations, and one thing that it must be able to do well to be considered as an all around rod is roll cast and mend line efficiently. Too stiff and a rod can’t roll cast well, too soft and mending line can be an issue with longer drifts when you have more line out, so you have to maintain a nice balance in order for the rod to be effective for nymphing and dry fly fishing. This wasn’t an issue at all with the B2X, especially the 6wt, and it was one of the really high points for this rod as it had plenty of power in the butt section to load roll casts and had enough flex to really slingshot the line out onto the water and deliver the flies accurately. The B3X was a little stiffer so I thought at first roll casting might be an issue. But instead what I found was that with a heavier line like the GPX you could sufficiently load the rod on the water with a standard roll cast just fine. The B3X performed roll casts very well in the 10-25ft range, if you push the rod you can roll cast in the 35-45ft range fairly accurately without too much problem, outside of that, you’re going to want a 7wt rod and probably something in the 10 foot long variety anyways. When mending I noticed that the stiffer mid sections of the B3X made picking the line up and off the water a bit easier and allowed me better line control than the B2X did. Again, I was very satisfied with the performance of the B3X and the extra power definitely helps with line lift and mending. As a side note, the B3X also does a nice job of single hand Spey casting. You will just want to use a bit quicker stroke and line the rod with a more triangular taper like an Airflo Sixth Sense if you’d like the rod to perform Spey Casts well.

Delicate Presentations: So after testing the B3X’s performance with a heavy nymphing setup and roll casting/mending (which it passed with flying colors), I thought it would be appropriate to see if it handled dries as well as the B2X did. Because, really that was one of the things that set the B2X apart from other rod companies’ offerings – a 6 weight that can set a tiny dry fly down on top of rising fish without sending them all fleeing for the nearest rock. Fortunately the winter time offers up a wonderful test for any rod that someone claims can deliver small flies delicately – midges! On a subsequent trip to the river I set out to find some fish up and working midges. Lengthening out the leader, removing split shot etc, I readied the rod with a small size 18 cluster midge, and set about putting the B3X to the test. Again I was pleasantly surprised – the rod possesses an uncanny ability to be dialed back by easing off the power stroke in your cast and slowing things down a bit to deliver a nice delicate presentation for feeding trout at a range of between 10-40ft or so. The fact that the B3X was a little powerful made it a bit better at longer distances than the B2X, so when I came up on riffles where fish were feeding right along the seamline seemingly out of reach without spooking them, you could now deliver a midge perfectly and still be able to control it at 30ft+. Only time will tell how it does with PMD’s, Drakes and Caddis, but I’d imagine that when the time comes, it will excel in these situations as well, especially if there’s one fish that’s just out of reach of your 4 weight...

Streamer Chucking: I’d like to add a disclaimer before talking about streamer fishing with the B3X: I’m not accustomed to fishing anything under a 7 or 8 weight for most of my own streamer fishing mostly because I like to throw 4-10” long monstrosities. For this review I’m talking about tossing a size 2 or smaller single hooked streamer. With that out of the way, for many fishermen streamer fishing is done when nothing else is working, for those of you in this school of thought, you’ll find this to be plenty of rod for any streamer fishing you might want to do. The B2X 6wt was a rod that I wouldn’t have recommended to anyone as a “streamer stick” and the B3X in a 6wt isn’t going to make anybody want to grab a 200 Grain sinking line and go throw around big articulated flies all day long either. What it does do nicely is deliver a decent sized streamer on a floating line accurately and without feeling like you’re not going to be able to tell the difference between the fly you’re fishing and a fish on the end of your leader… The B2X was a bit sluggish for most hardcore streamer fishermen, but it got the job done in a pinch. However I always felt like it was difficult to get a good hook set with a streamer with the flex in that rod; the B3X was much better at this than its predecessor with the extra power. However, I still can’t say that the B3X is a great streamer rod. The BIIMX is really much better suited for the fisherman looking for a streamer fishing rod from Winston. But if needed you can use this rod for tossing around most store bought streamer patterns as long as you realize it’s not going to be the primary function and instead is part of a whole package of options – under that context it does the job just fine.

Casting Range: The B2X was a wonderful rod for casts within 50 feet or less, if you got much out of that range you really had to be an excellent caster to push beyond the casual limits of the rod. The B3X however has a little more power in its butt section and mid sections and so in my experience casting the B3X it can deliver line further distances much easier and even more accurately. This will be beneficial for people who aren’t on the water every day, really the vast majority of the rod buying market. But really in terms of fishing, that doesn’t do much for you unless you find yourself in a parking lot or on the river in a windy situation. For that reason having more power is beneficial because you can punch a tight loop through the wind with the B3X without collapsing the loop while trying to turnover your flies like the B2X oftentimes did. This was put to the test on another trip out to the Lower Madison during which I was blessed with the normal 10-20MPH stuff that comes with warmer weather fronts during the winter and the B3X performed remarkably well. I worked to close the loop by stopping the rod abruptly on both my front and back casts, and speeding up your back cast and tightening up your loop you can easily power stroke your way through most any head wind. Realize though that you will need a bit of room for your back cast to really load the rod.

Overall Assessment: When I began the initial rod review process I was apprehensive about finding more faults with the B3X as I felt that Winston was going to be hard pressed to match, let alone exceed, the expectations given the initial accolades and praise the B3X had received before its release. Being such a fan of the B2X series, I was also cringing hoping that they wouldn’t ruin the softer tip and overall fishability of the rod. Not too many rod companies could have pulled this one off any better. The B3X has surpassed the B2X in all aspects performance wise, and it definitely has solidified itself as my go to rod for the time being. But I’ll have to revisit the situation come summertime as I typically fish a lot of smaller waters with my B2X 6wt. When I do I’ll gladly give you a second take on things, but at this point in time I can say without hesitation that the B3X is the best Western Trout Rod that I have personally fished on our mid to larger sized rivers and I would recommend the 9’6wt to anyone looking for “One Rod to Do It All” for the rivers of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

O' Lower Madison Let Me Count the Ways I Love Thee...

2011-02-09T07:28:00.000-08:00

By far and away the most consistent fishery almost year round in our neck of the woods is the Lower Madison from Ennis Lake all the way down to Three Forks and as we approach Valentine's Day I thought it fitting to count the ways this river is better than your lover (just don't tell her that)...

Amazingly enough even when the dam at Hebgen failed a few years ago and sent a couple extra thousand CFS shooting down you, you still fished well. Again when a bus sized rock came tumbling down and crushed a piece of the Ennis dam that is still under repair you still fished well despite them shutting down your magnificent Beartrap Canyon area temporarily. Despite water temperatures that reach the lower to mid 70's during the heated summer months you can still churn out magnificent 20"+ rainbows and browns from your waters. Yes, you truly are a resilient river, and even though you get stained and trashed all summer long by floaters who flick cigarette butts on your banks and throw beer cans in your riffles, you still manage to maintain a beauty much different than those trailer park frequenters...Through all four seasons you manage to satisfy the yearning desire of thousands to catch the trout that inhabit your waters, yet leave those visiting in the more desolate winter months to believe they are the only one's who have enjoyed your fruits. When other fisheries are choked with ice and slush, you manage to provide an option for those of use insane enough to fish when it's not even above freezing, and for that we love you.

When Spring comes along, you don't display any ornate and beautiful fauna, instead you reveal your true colors, brown sometimes muddy banks with a splash of green here or there. But we're not concerned with what you wear, only that your waters stay clean long after others dirty. Crayfish are your most prized possession, at least to us fishermen, providing a uniquely warm water fishery treat for the wild browns and rainbows that teem in your cooler waters. Who can forget your caddis hatch, bringing thousands of fish that we didn't know existed the rest of the year to your surface when other rivers are blowing out from runoff.

Then, despite the fact that your bottom is mostly silted in from years of runoff and a haphazard dam structure that only adds to the issue, you manage to produce some decent Salmonfly fishing to kick the summer off, right before the onslaught of recreational users come to sully your waters. Then you will become almost too warm to fish, except in the early mornings and late evenings, leaving the fisherman who can't forsake you for other waters an option even during your worst of fishing seasons...

When summer begins to come to a close, you begin to pick right up where you left off in the spring with fish hungry for a meal other than the McDonald's bags that floated down all summer long... Hoppers adorn your banks at this time of year, and for the lucky piscators who happen to head out to your waters in the late summer early fall, you provide much different scenery to stare at a piece of foam with rubberlegs than your older sister the Upper Madison or your cousins the Gallatin and Jefferson.

Then as fall wanes you refuse to take a day off providing some of the best early winter fishing around for those who can't seem to put down their fly rods for a shotgun or rifle... Yes Lower Madison, you truly are as faithful a partner as one could ask for and so much more...

Winter Fishing Tactics and Other Ramblings...

2011-01-28T08:30:00.000-08:00

When the water temps are warmer than the outside temps, then it's time to head to the river. Winter time in Montana is one of the best times of year for fishing, and it happens to be one of the times that I actually get a break from work where I can take a whole day and head to the river without worrying about missing out on anything too urgent...

So besides my personal bias towards winter, there's a lot of good reasons to fish during the winter time, not to mention that if you "hate crowds" you can almost be sure to not find any other anglers on a weekday in January... The Winter is a time when fish are stacked up and once you find one or two, there's usually another two or twenty waiting for you to feed them whatever your fly du jour happens to be. Fly selection is another bonus of winter fishing as you don't have to carry around 12 boxes with complicated representations of all of the different stages of several different insects that might happen to be hatching like you would during the summer. Nope, in the winter time you can go with a few standbys and a couple of the flies that draw the ire of nearly every "purist" angler out there - the good 'ol Worm and Eggs.

Another big plus of winter fishing is the time period for fishing during the winter is very gentlemanly - starts no earlier than 10 o'clock and ends before happy hour is over, perfect. So with a short window of time to fish, you don't have to rummage through 30 different fly patterns, at least not if you want to spend time fishing instead of practicing knot tying. As you might know from having tuned in from time to time to my ramblings, I'm no purist, no one would ever describe me as such. But what I am is a pragmatist. So I cycle between 4 or 5 different patterns, and if those aren't working, well then I'm just not going to catch fish I suppose. In all honesty if you simply have some midges (assorted colors to match your favorite body of water), some small pink soft hackles, some eggs, some worms, and maybe a favorite nymph or two like a pheasant tail or a prince nymph, then you've pretty much got your winter fishing covered in 99% of situations and places.

During the winter months your odds of going out and catching a few fish in the short time span the fishing conditions are conducive are pretty darn good if you follow a few rules.

First rule is this: dress warm, if you don't you won't enjoy the experience regardless of whether the fishing is any good...

Second rule is pick your days and by that I mean don't head to the river if you've got a winter storm warning or 30MPH winds, that will ruin a winter fishing day quick.

Third rule is that you should always size up your tippet in the winter, you'll lose less flies and the fish don't care as they aren't getting pressured very often, I personally fish 2X and 3X Fluorocarbon all winter long, occasionally throwing on 4X if they get picky.

Fourth rule is change your indicator position, leader length and weight at least 20 times before you change flies in any given run or pool etc, trust me this will increase the amount of fish you catch.

Fifth rule is once you find one fish in a good deep slow spot, don't move on quickly, keep fishing it because there's more in there and they aren't spooky in the winter months.

Finally, when you're fishing during the winter, take the time to really read the water and scope out potential places to fish during the summertime like nice deep runs and holding habitat. During the wintertime flows are at some of their lowest points of the year and really do reveal themselves to the attentive fisherman.

So really, what's not to like about winter fishing?

Where There’s Water, There’s Fish

2010-12-14T06:05:00.000-08:00

Here's a little piece I wrote for Bozeman Magazine a few month's back that I thought would be highly appropriate for this time of year when we all get a little stir crazy about fishing...

Bozeman, Montana has long been known as a fishing haven amongst fly fishing aficionados, and mostly because of the surrounding big name waters like the Madison, Gallatin and Yellowstone among others. But for many local anglers and folks who spend a lot of time on the water, it’s the lesser known and surrounding area waters that provide the summer solitude that many anglers seek but cannot seem to find.

Now, if you think that you’re going to get all of the secret places that have been amassed over several lifetimes of fishing in Montana and passed down through suggestions and innuendos, well then you should probably put this down and go enjoy whatever else you had planned for your day. This is not a where to go guide, sorry. But what you can do is go pick up a Montana Atlas or Gazetteer and start plotting your own places that you think might hold fish.

The first step in finding any good fishing spot is looking to see if it drains from a place that holds fish, say a lake or reservoir that has been stocked by Fish Wildlife and Parks, or if it drains into a body of water that is known to hold fish, say like a small tributary of the Madison or Gallatin. If it fits this criteria, you can be assured that there are fish in that body of water. Finding good lakes is as easy as checking the FWP stocking schedules and making a few phone calls to the Regions Fisheries Biologist to see if there has been a freeze out or fish kill since the last stocking.

Creeks and streams however are a little more difficult, and will require some feet on the ground so to speak. You aren’t going to get your local fishing folk to give up their spots easily, if you ask oftentimes you’re going to get nasty looks and lies, so don’t bother. Plus it is way more fun to figure things out on your own, think of it as your own little wild adventure to discover uncharted waters. Once you have found a piece of water that you think might hold fish in it and that meets the above listed criteria, it’s time to determine what is the best time of the year to fish it.

When to fish your new mystery water is a pretty easy decision, if it’s in the middle of nowhere Montana and let’s say it’s really hot in that place and maybe it’s not known for trout fishing at all, you might be better off fishing it in the spring or fall when water temperatures might be a little cooler. Then again, maybe it’s not open in the spring, as many watersheds in the state fall under general season regulations which are the 3rd Saturday in May through November 30th, in which case you’re going to want to explore that area sometime after runoff but before it gets too hot and dewatered, say maybe mid to late June or early July. Or you might have found something that’s in the high mountains in which case you might not want to venture there until sometime in mid to late August when the snow is off and water temperatures have warmed up. The main key is to never underestimate timing in fishing new waters, certain times of the year will be much better than others, and places you thought were devoid of fish, might actually have hundreds of fish in them, you just had the wrong timing.

Finally the last piece of the recipe you are going to need for success on your new found fishery is going to be knowledge of what the fish are feeding on. Seems simple, but some areas are going to be vastly different than others in terms of what the food base is for fish in those streams. That’s where some general rules and a bug seine will go a long ways in helping you be successful in your pursuits. If you don’t know anything about bug life talk to your local fly shop and they likely will have a couple of books on bug identification they can recommend, if you’re going to explore, you have to arm yourself with some rudimentary knowledge first. When you get to that special place, kick over some rocks in the riffle water and use the seine to find out what’s crawling around. You’ll have a better chance of catching the fish if you know what they’re feeding on.

Now go pick up that Atlas, fire up Google Earth, pull up Fish Wildlife and Park’s website and start doing some searching, you never know what you might find.

Stepping Outside of the Box

2010-12-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while when I'm fishing, I start to get bored with certain aspects of the sport. Sure, there's always the peace and serenity of being outdoors, and all of the other touchy feely stuff that goes along with the whole experience, but sometimes, you find yourself fishing less and less and less excited and interested in fishing. When that happens I just go grab a fishing magazine, any magazine, and look for some divine inspiration. And up and to this point in my fishing career I've always found it, something that keeps me interested, something a little different to try, a technique, something else to master.

Sometimes that thing might take a while for me to gain interest in, sometimes it's fleeting and I won't think of it the next hundred times I head to the river, then I'll see something that reminds me of it and I'll get interested in that facet of fishing again. Over the years it's been everything from tube flies, to czech nymphing, to tandem flies, to different nymphing techniques, to different casts, to spey casting, to two handed rods, to small dry flies, to giant streamers, you name something that involves freshwater fishing and I've either dabbled in it or at least given it some serious thought.

For a lot of us, we might not have the cash sitting around to go do a two week bender in the Salt, or chase exotic species around the world, some of us have a wife, kids, work, a life that ties us to what we're doing. Not that giving it all up and chasing your dreams isn't admirable, but despite all the blogs and articles written on being a "fishbum" the reality for most is that we don't have the luxury of a trust fund and unlimited resources to pursue fish all over the planet, a lot of us are stuck to fishing in our backyards and around the area we live in, and because of that, sometimes we do get burned out.

That's why you have to start thinking outside of the box in your fishing pursuits - try out some new things to keep yourself interested... There's a pile of things that you can come up with on your own just by reading a few articles on fishing, but try doing that and you might find yourself with information overload. So pick one. For me lately it's been two handed rods for trout, just for something different. It's something that I've tried off and on and haven't really ever dedicated myself to learning. Mostly because fishing for trout with two handed big rods seems like a waste since a lot of the time you aren't catching fish worthy of a bend in a rod longer than 12 feet. But put yourself out on some big water on a big river and you'll be able to have fun just learning the casts and the challenge of putting the flies in the right places, or in this case fishing some different water with time tested techniques on a bigger longer rod is actually a lot of fun.

For more ideas read a little piece on my Tip of the Month at - http://tinyurl.com/2gy2s3n but do yourself a favor this off season and pick up a few new tricks for your fishing bag. It will make you a better fishermen and it will keep you enjoying something that's good for all of us, being out in the great outdoors chasing around an animal with a brain the size of a pea...

Framing Your Shot

2010-10-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

So I thought that for the fall, when you should be getting those best fish of the year, that everyone might like to know a few tricks of how to frame your fish so that your lasting memory isn't out of focus and full of more background and less fish. After all, the fish themselves are fleeting, but the memories you capture on your camera last a lot longer. So the next time you get a fish that you want to capture a moment, don't screw it up with a few tips and tricks.

This isn't a "how to take nice nature shots" piece, because let's face it I haven't been to film school and I couldn't tell you what light levels, time of day or anything else have to do with photo's. But I can tell you how to make your fish look a little bigger, how to frame them so that you are maximizing the amount of fish and minimizing the amount of everything else and how to get a shot that you can be proud to show to your friends instead of something you privately view instead of being made fun of by others...

The first trick is going to be hiding those meat cleavers you call hands, that's right big guys, we're at a disadvantage here. If you have small hands and fingers, you're already on the right road to better fishing shots (ladies you're in luck here too!) What we are looking for here is not putting your hands all over the fish - in addition to stripping away their slime and choking them with a death grip, it looks absolutely terrible in photos, see subject below with hands all over the fish - this is one not to replicate. Position your hands underneath and behind the fish, minimizing the amount of finger sausage in the photo like the following photo.

The next trick is how you hold the fish relative to the camera. Don't be "that guy" who jams the fish in the camera and tries to lean back away from the camera like this shot below. In addition to looking eerily similar to a shrunken head doll, you will lose all credibility with any fisherman who knows anything about taking photos... On the other side of the coin don't hold them tight to your chest and squeeze either, this dwarfs the fish and creates the illusion that you are indeed trying to do something unnatural with the animal. Simply hold the fish out and away from your body naturally- we'll talk about angles next.

This here is the big one, the letting of the cat out of the bag so to speak (shhhh don't tell anyone I told you this, it's supposed to be an insider secret, haha...) By adjusting the angle at which you take your photos (that means you'll have to talk to the camera man too) you can adjust the way the fish looks to the naked eye. You should also adjust the angle at which you position the fish. My favorite and the best looking shot of a fish is with the head angled towards the camera, the tail angled slightly upwards and slightly away from the camera (towards you). So that's head towards, tail away and hide the fingers. See what happens below with the same fish and different angles, dramatic huh.

Finally, not all photos have to be gratuitous fish porn with fish jammed in the lens. After being around fishing my entire life, I appreciate shots that remind me of the day itself encapsulating a little bit of your surroundings and what made that fish special. Leave a fly in the face every now and again, grab some background in the shot, angle it a little differently. If you have an underwater camera, snap some underwater shots of the fish, or try getting a good one of you releasing your fish back safely into the water.

Whatever you do, remember that as much as we like to photograph the fish, having them out of water for extended periods of time is like you having your head held underwater, protect the resource and be cognisant of releasing all fish safely back into the water. After all, what the hell good is a photo of a fish you just killed, I promise your buddies won't be stoked on that...

Now get out on the water and enjoy this Indian Summer we're having this October!

That Time of Year...

2010-09-08T14:00:00.001-07:00

The days are shortening, the evenings are coming quicker and the air feels a little more crisp, truly fall is in the air. That's when I start to get excited about streamer fishing. Regardless of what's going on in my life, this is a time of the year that I look forward to with anticipation. It's not that September is the greatest month for streamer fishing, far from it, but it does mean that October and November will soon be here, it means that soon enough those brown trout will be changing color and shedding their summer buttery yellows for fall crimson and pumpkin oranges. And they'll be chasing...

Some might argue with you that streamer fishing is only done in the fall, I'll politely tell you that you are full of $#!+, but what is for sure is that streamer fishing in the fall is much different than in the spring time. Instead of waiting for the temperatures to warm up like you do in April, you are simply waiting for the browns to get aggressive, flip their light switch, and start chasing stuff because they're pissed, not because they desperately need a big meal. It's the chance to get fish when they are healthy, when they are fat and sloppy from a summer of feeding, before they go through the stresses of spawning, winter and other things that make them much less appealing to the camera lense. If you truly want a fat sloppy brown trout, there is no better time than the fall.

But you'd better be bringing along some angling skills, because the fall isn't for the novice fisherman to go out and blindly flail away at the water - reading water, knowing where the fish are going to lie when they are getting ready to dig out their spawn beds, and knowing what colors to use etc are all a little more significant in the fall. So I advise you if you haven't done much "trout hunting" in the fall, you find a good buddy who has, or stop by some place where the locals know what they are talking about and get some advice... Then grab a few things that might break your 5 weight, and give in and get a 7 weight (or bigger) and head to the water with some tippet that looks more like cable than monofilament and give it a go. Afterwards there's always a nice beer and a football game on, relax and bask in the glow of a TV for the evening, god I love fall.

Midnight Grasshoppers?

2010-08-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

Confused by the title? You should be. But really it's about as confusing as why fish start eating grasshoppers like crazy before we really see grasshoppers on the water in large numbers. Everybody gets excited about hopper fishing, but really on many of the freestone rivers, it isn't until mid to late August or even early September before we see the big fat grasshoppers in any significant numbers around the water. Yet the fish come up and engulf the damn hopper patterns sometimes as early as the 3rd week of July... It used to leave me scratching my head and wondering, "What the hell?" Then I started using some trout brain thinking.

That's right, trying to think like a trout - that requires you breaking stuff down into really easy to understand terms, example follows: I'm eating big ugly tan and yellow rubberlegged things, some of them with big white wings... That's your trout insight, so you have to then think, what else is going on on the river that coincides with them beginning to eat grasshopper patterns, and there's the rub. Around the same time that the Hopper fishing begins to pick up, there is a nocturnal late summer goldenstone that hatches around all of our local freestone rivers. The Gallatin, Madison, Yellowstone, Big Hole and nearly all of their tributaries get these stones, the problem for your casual angler is that they don't hatch in big numbers in the middle of the day. They actually crawl up and onto the rocks on the banks and emerge from their shucks at times where you won't find many people on the river, night time. If you spend any early mornings on the river (I'm talking before 6am) you may have seen these things flying around and wondered what the heck they are - they're nocturnal stones, and they have very poorly developed wings, the males actually don't fly, the females do, but neither one flies well so they mate and lay their eggs on the top of the water, hence the big rubberlegged patterns skipped up along the banks working...

Mystery solved. Well at least as far as you can solve a Trout related question, until we can interview one of these damn things all we have is conjecture and our own opinions. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm not, all I know is that it makes a lot more sense than thinking that they're taking a size 6 or 8 tan rubberlegged thing for a grasshopper during July when you haven't seen a hopper bigger than a size 16 on or around the water.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

2010-07-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

This might seem like blasphemy coming from a die hard streamer fisherman - but I do like to fish attractor dries during the summer months, and if you don't well, then you don't stare at an indicator for long enough during the times when the fishing isn't red hot with streamers, because if you did, you'd understand why it's fun to stare at a big piece of foam and rubber legs hanging on top of the water waiting to be toilet bowled down by a big trout.

So I thought I'd share a few of my favorite patterns for the year with you before the season has come and gone, because it really only lasts a few short months in Montana and if you miss it, well let's just say you'll have plenty of time to stare at an indicator again afterwards... And of course I'll have to include a dropper or two, because you can't do a dry dropper with no dropper, come on now!

Yeager Bomb

This little fly has been one of the shop favorites since we started fishing it last year and it's quickly become a staple in my own summer arsenal as it floats high, can be used as a dry in the dry dropper rig, and it flat out fishes everywhere from creeks to big rivers. A must have for any summer dry fly junkie - availalbe in Ruby Red & Caddis Brown in 10's 12's and 14's.

Thing-A-Ma Bug

So when we knew this was going to be a great fly was last fall when we stuck the sample into a jar of water and left it there for 8 months and every week or so we'd swish the water around and see if the fly would sink, and it never sank. Floats like the Thingamabobber's because it's got one for a post, plus rubberlegs peacock and some wing flash, deadly. Say goodbye Fat Albert, here's your double, he floats higher and fishes better.

Purple Para Wulff
This is a little pattern that is an offshoot of the recently popularized Purple Haze (a purple Parachute Adams). I personally think that this fishes better because it floats better and you can see it better, therefore it fishes better. Let's face it, purple is in, it might be a fad, but metro colors are all the rage in fly fishing these days, who am I to argue. Purple Lightning Bugs, Purple Chubby's, Purple Hazes, purple purple purple... It works, what can I say.

Mustang Sally

This little bad boy has been bringing fish into the boat since we first saw it in 2007, and we've been using it every year since with a lot of success. If you really boil this one down it's a Copper John with a few tweeks that put it in a category by itself, really one of the better yellow sally nymph patterns out there. This thing just flat out works from the Madison to the Gallatin to the Yellowstone to the Jefferson to the creeks and everything in between.

Chubby Chernobyl Black & Tan

This pattern has taken on a life of it's own, affectionately known as simply "The Chubby" this pattern has revolutionized the attractor dry fly world by allowing what is nothing more than a piece of foam with a wing and rubberlegs and some wrapped yarn to become the guide go to and favorite on nearly every river drainage around Southwestern Montana - if you don't have a few of these in your box in August, you probably shouldn't be guiding anyone down the river. This year it's available in Purples, Reds, Oranges, Browns, and my personal fave - the Black & Tan - so toast a Guiness and Bass to this boy, but expect big browns to be eating it.

Mini Loop Sculpin

What kind of posting from yours truly would be complete without at least one streamer pattern or mention in it? That's right, you can't fish this below a dry (at least not anything other than a well greased size 6 Golden Chubby) but what you can do is swing these under cut-banks and gravel shelves and other great trout holding places and then grab your rod and hold on tight because they smoke this thing. A simple little sculpin pattern that is best fished tight lined or under an indicator, these little guys are a great day maker on many of our rivers out West.

And with that I'll leave you wondering how many of these you can fit into your own fly box this summer, me I have them all, probably dozen's of them, because I have a sickness that can only be cured by fishing...

Summertime Streamer Fishing

2010-07-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

There are very few things that I willingly and happily get up for before 5am for in life, and one of those is fishing, and I'll let your imagination wander on what the others might be... Every year summer rolls around and I start to get the itch to get out fishing as the weather warms, the sun comes out to visit, horribly strange tan lines begin to get established, and the trout start to get hungry after a couple of months of runoff... The only downside is that during the middle of the bright sunny days, fish just aren't coming up to chase a streamer 10 feet from the bottom of the river when there is so much other food in the water column that is more readily available to them.

So what do you do? I mean I have to get the fix or I go nuts, nymphing has been the staple for the last 4 months or better now and I'm over it at this point in the fishing season - spring provides some relief for the addict, but really the right after runoff dropping and clearing makes for some great streamer fishing, but if you miss the window as the rivers are still raging the mid day streamer fishing can be tough. Solution: get your @$$ out of bed early and get on the water when the light is low and the fish are still feeding up in the shallows and chasing baitfish and sculpins. There aren't a whole lot of folks willing to do this, so I don't feel like I'm revealing the Holy Grail, and really, 5am on the water isn't for everyone.

What's waiting for you on the river at this time is some of the funnest fishing of the day as big browns will hang up in the shallower water along the banks chasing baitfish and sculpins and feeding readily on your sloppily presented large hunk of meat that you're crashing the shoreline with. The unofficial sponsors for these events are typically Verizon who provides my wake up at 4 something in the wee hours, then McDonald's if you're lucky and someone is around before 6, and usually a random beer company by 11 or so after fishing for 4 or 5 hours without stopping... Yeah I love summer streamer fishing, it's just that getting up thing that you have to get over!

Notch One for Another Year

2010-07-02T08:00:00.001-07:00

Salmonfly fever only gets cured one way - scratching the itch. And I'm not talking about the Nuge's problem of Cat Scratch Fever itching, I'm talking about getting out on the water and pitching some big, bushy, ugly, high floating, foam dry flies for the big dogs in the rivers. Now if you can't get into putting a size 4 about an inch off the bank and watching it sail underneath undercut banks and wood and trees hanging in the water, then well you and I just can't relate buddy. I'm as big of a junk hucker as anyone out there and I've never met a time of year that I don't enjoy pitching streamers, but when Salmonfly Time rolls around about my birthday every year, I'm ready to throw back a few cold ones and throw em tight to the bank and watch 'em get sucked down!

The Upper Madison is my favorite spot, and my favorite stretch is Varney to Ennis, I'm not the only one I know that, and you're usually not alone on that stretch either. But what you might lack for in loneliness on this piece of water is more than made up for by the sweet structure that abounds through that stretch for pitching dries. And on the 29th I got to go scratch my itch and it was every bit as wonderful as I thought it was going to be... And if you want a few pointers, well then I suggest checking out our article on dispelling the myths of salmonfly fishing that we threw together the other day.

Have a Happy 4th of July Weekend, be safe, thank a Vet for their service, blow a few things up and have an ice cold beverage and be thankful that we live in the best place on Earth, The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, AMERICA BABY!!!

Salmonfly Fever

2010-06-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

There's one time of the year that I get really jazzed to sit down and tie up big ugly dry flies - Salmonfly Time. Although it's probably defined on a calendar differently in different parts of the country, for myself it's easy to define - it all starts on or around my Birthday... June 25th.

Now, is it a coincidence that my day of birth coincides with the emergence of this species of special concern to trout in freestone rivers? Nope. Just ask my dad, he didn't plan it that way I'm sure, but he can tell you - I was born to fish the Salmonfly hatch (it probably ruined more than a few of his, but when I got old enough I was on the water, every year, for Salmonflies!)

It's something I just don't miss out on and so when my daughter was by all doctor accounts going to arrive very close to my Birthday I wasn't a bit surprised, from one generation to the next so to speak - it was my turn to experience what it's like to have a kid during "The Hatch." I lived through it and I'm here to tell you that I didn't miss it that year, not last year, and certainly won't be missing it this year. It's one of those hatches that no matter how much it gets overhyped and overcrowded, I still manage to find some joy in pitching black and orange size 2 and 4 monstrosities on the end of 0x tippet...

My favorite 2 rivers for pitching Salmonflies in the world are the Madison and the Big Hole, maybe it's because I grew up on them, maybe not, who cares. Year in and year out they have the big bugs, the hatch whether sparse or thick is going to attract as many fishermen as fish, and so I don't have the river ever to myself, but when you get in a thick hazy zone of Salmonflies and beer, who cares, it's all good and the usually there's a few bruisers that come eat a dry for you which makes it all worth it.

So this year, I have to admit I'm sitting here watching high dirty water and dreaming of a little reprieve if only for an afternoon to go pitch some "Dry Junk" to some big browns and maybe just maybe pitch a few streamers while I'm at it...