This is one of our favorite months, and the Montana fishing report for June will tell you why. June is one of our run-off months when the snow comes out of the mountains and river conditions become unpredictable. That is the tricky part about June, but years of experience have also proven that June is our best month for big fish and epic dry fly fishing if you’re willing to be flexible.
Our local Missoula freestone streams usually come into shape sometime between the first of June and the 12th. Some years it is earlier and others it is later, but that is the average. When our local streams aren’t fishable we run our trips on the Missouri. It is a tailwater that provides consistent clean flows when our rivers are dirty.
This year we were on the Missouri until June 8 with great nymphing and some good dry fly fishing with PMDs. By then we had a couple options in Missoula so we fished Salmonflies on small, fast water for 3 days with good results. All the other options were dropping into shape and it looked as though the dry fly fishing would bust wide open in the coming days.
Unfortunately we had a huge rain storm move in with up to 4 inches of rain in the area. All of our local streams blew out and some even went above flood stage. Based on the weather forecast I moved the last 2 days of a 3 day trip over to the Missouri. My angler was a little reluctant as he had never fished the Missouri before. Two days later he had experienced some of the most fun dry fly fishing of his life, biggest brown trout ever, and a boat load of quality rainbows and browns.
I tried to get my next angler to move his 2 days to the Missouri as well. He insisted on staying in Missoula so on day one we ran over and back to the Missouri river. By lunch he mentioned it was some of the finest fishing he had ever experienced, then in the afternoon he landed 2 browns well over 20″. The next day we fished around Missoula and had to work hard for every fish in less than ideal conditions. At the end of the trip my angler said next time I recommend we go and stay somewhere to fish, he will listen.
At this point the Missoula rivers are again dropping into shape. We have giant Salmonflies coming off in several different places with Golden Stoneflies, and Green Drakes not far behind. We moved some huge brown trout on dries yesterday on the Blackfoot, and the big fish will continue to hit the net until our water clears and drops to summer levels.
We never know for certain where we will be fishing each June. The Montana fishing report for June this year has been unpredictable. What we do know is wherever that happens to be, there will be big fish and good dry fly fishing.
