Fall Fly Fishing
Monday was the first of 2 days with local anglers, Jeff and Jim. In an effort to get away from traffic we picked a stretch of the Clark Fork that requires a serious portage.
It was cloudy and cooler to start the day and Jim didn’t waste anytime with a solid rainbow on the dropper right above the put in.
Then we were stuck in dinkville for a while. All of the normal spots produced but it was mostly 8-12″ trout or whitefish.
Just as I was thinking of a fly change, Jim came tight to a heavy fish in shallow water and the fight was on. After a good battle he had a gorgeous 20″ brown trout in the net. At that point I knew we had the right flies and just had to stick with it.
The next run produced a few decent trout and then Jeff connected with a thick rainbow in a slower run. After that we found a faster run that was loaded. I was able to re row that spot several times and every drift we hooked good sized fish including an awesome double where Jeff had a 19″ bow and Jim had one that went 21+”.
We found one other riffle shelf that was stacked with fish and picked off several good ones in that spot. In between it was fairly steady action from good sized cuttbows and rainbows with some smaller trout mixed in. Despite the cloud cover all of our action was on droppers with only a couple looks at the dry.
We managed the portage without too much trouble. The water below that wasn’t the best. The guys picked off a couple more small guys before we made the push to the take out.
It was a good day for both numbers and size compared to what I have seen recently. I’m sure the cloud cover helped with that, and Jeff and Jim took full advantage.
Fall Fly Fishing
Tuesday we met early and headed up to the canyon of the Blackfoot looking for some dry fly action. With the cold temp in the morning we started with dry/dropper rigs and it took a few runs to get the right dropper dialed in.
Jim got things going with a decent cutthroat and we picked up a few smaller fish before getting to the Munchmore hole. We started off on the other side of that run and Jim came tight to a lightning bolt on the dropper.
It turned out to be a thick rainbow that screamed all over the run with a couple of jumps. Then we slid over to the foam edge and managed to stick a few fish in that spot, but they were a little picky in there today.
A couple more fish fell to the dropper in the next run and then there were enough tricos around to switch over to a double dry rig.
We stuck with that through the rest of the canyon and had a really good dry fly session. The guys caught an absolute pile of 8-12″ cutts and cuttbows on small dries.
I was constantly releasing fish and applying floatant the rest of the morning. While it was a lot of little guys on the hunt, there were some bigger fish mixed in too. Jeff tagged a couple of really nice rainbows around 16″ and Jim had some fat cutts up to 15″.
We stopped for lunch when the tricos faded and I switched Jim over to an ant pattern for the afternoon while I kept Jeff on a mayfly in the beginning. It wasn’t as fast and furious as the morning, but we were still moving fish in the likely spots on both flies.
There were a couple of runs that produced several fish including a couple decent cuttbows, but the action faded as the afternoon continued. We tried ants, hoppers, and a few other flies but couldn’t really crack the code over the last hour or so. Jeff tagged one more little guy above the take out and we called it a day.
There was not shortage of action on the water. We had a decent dropper bite early and then an excellent dry fly window for the rest of the morning with a fair afternoon to close things out.
A pair of fun days with Jim and Jeff and I will see them once more in October for my final 2 days of the season.
Fall Fly Fishing
It was a short week on the water for me as I had some time blocked off to go chase my bird dogs around the prairies of Montana.
We had some great hunting in gorgeous country. It is hard to beat watching dogs work over wild birds. That’s the only problem with fall….there are too many fun activities to choose from!
Fall Fly Fishing
While I was out in the field, my guide staff was on the river daily with some good results.
As we move deeper into fall there are a few more quality fish showing up. It hasn’t been easy so far, but anglers willing to fish hard have been rewarded with some great trout.
The next batch of cloudy/rainy weather should put the mayfly hatches into high gear and get some of those big ones looking up.
Tight Lines,
Tony Reinhardt
Montana Trout Outfitters
406-544-3516
