Missoula Fishing Report – Walking the Tightrope

Missoula Fishing Report
Brilliant dry fly cuttbow

The Missoula fishing report is changing daily.  This time of the season gives us some of our best fly fishing of the year along with a few of our roughest days on the water as well.  Just because the Blackfoot was awesome today is no guarantee that you will find consistent fishing there tomorrow.  It is a challenging tightrope for guides to walk right now.  Some years I feel like I am totally in-tune and every call I make is right on the money.  I’ll hit the West Fork of the Bitterroot right on, then Rock Creek, and then the Blackfoot.  Gamble on the lower Clark Fork and find Green Drakes coming off in waves and big fish crushing them.  Other years I have taken a beating for a week straight chasing day old fishing reports and finding trout with their noses glued to the river bottom.  There is a ton of bug life on our rivers right now and this is the only time of year when the trout will gorge so hard that they may not feed for a day or two afterwards.  It doesn’t take many Salmonflies to fill up the average trout and I spent a day last week watching dozens of naturals floating down the river unharmed because there wasn’t a trout in the stream who wasn’t completely stuffed full.  Fast forward to today when we were on the exact same stretch of river and it was awesome.  Even though there were fewer bugs, there were plenty of healthy trout looking up for dry flies.  There is no exact formula to follow that will guarantee great fishing in June.  Some days you just have to take your licks, but with risk comes reward, and the rewards during stonefly season are hard to beat.  The Missoula fishing report is simple, it’s happening all over the area right now and if you’re in the right place at the right time you will have the some of the best fly fishing of your life.