Honesty in Fly Fishing
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of honesty in fly fishing these days. From the Instafamous taking pics of average sized trout just right to make them look huge to the girls posing for grip-n-grins in bikinis. Who knew long arms would be a marketable commodity, and if you’re in a bikini you are fishing for Likes not what’s in the water.
Guide/Client Relationship
I could easily go off the rails on this one, but the topic of honesty in fly fishing came up recently with another guide talking about the guide/client relationship. As guides our job is to produce the best possible fly fishing experience on a daily basis. Good guides do this consistently, but even the best hit bumps in the road and often the root cause is a lack of honesty.
Clients don’t often lie about their skill level, but why they would lie about that at all is a total mystery. It only takes a couple minutes once we are on the water to see the skill set I am working for the day so why lie about it at the hotel in the morning? Now there’s a chance I may have picked a float that offers scenarios above our pay grade. Once we are on the water I can’t opt out for a different stretch of river that plays better to your actual skill level.
One of the bigger issues is clients being honest about who they are as an angler. Yes, we all want to catch 20 inchers on dry flies from start to finish but that’s not a reality most days. Are you an action junkie who likes a bent rod all day or do you prefer to hunt for just a few big fish? We can cater to either, but usually not both at the same time.
2 + 2 = 5
A good example is a couple guys who told me in the morning they were DFO (dry fly only) anglers. I love fishing dries and enjoy that approach. Based on the conditions I picked a float where I thought we had the best chance of successfully fishing dry flies from ramp to ramp. The first hour was a little slow with only a couple fish and one of the anglers turns to me and asks, “Should we be fishing a dropper?” Excuse me sir, but if I knew you guys would fish droppers I would have picked an entirely different river for the day.
Honest expectations are in short supply on some days. The classic example is when an experienced angler brings their spouse or child/grandchild. In the morning they say, “I’ve been fishing for years so I’ll be fine, just take care of my wife/son/etc.” At some point they realize they’re not catching as many as when they’re in the bow with their 20 year fishing partner along. They can even get a little pouty.
For the guide the dynamics are much different in a boat with a new angler versus two experienced anglers. We love introducing new anglers to the sport, but if you want them to have a great experience then we have to focus on them and that means you are not going to catch as many or even have as many opportunities in the back. If you want your new angler to love the sport as much as you then they need to have the best day possible. If they do, you will be trading off on rising fish for years to come.
Anglers not being fully honest with their guide isn’t a deal breaker. At the end of the day the guide is still going home, having a beer, and getting ready to head out again in the morning. It just makes it a little harder for guides to deliver the type of fishing experience anglers have been day dreaming about at their office for the whole year.
Next time we will talk about honest guides…..if I can find one!
Secrets of Summer Fishing
August is our slowest month of the fishing season in Missoula. The risk of forest fires and fishing restrictions have caused anglers to shy away from what used to be one of our more popular times. It is certainly understandable, but for the anglers willing to gamble on August there are some secrets of summer fishing that can make for an awesome trip to Montana.
August is your best chance to find unpressured trout. There are stretches of the Bitterroot and Clark Fork that may not see a guide boat for days during August. If you find yourself on one of those stretches where the trout have been rested it can provide some of the best hopper fishing of the season. There are a ton of fishing options around Missoula and many days in August you will have an entire stretch of river to yourself.
Early on, early off is the key to success. Water temps are most favorable early, before the heat of the day sets in. The trout know this and they feed most aggressively during this time period. Take in a gorgeous Montana sunrise and stick some nice trout when it’s most comfortable for everyone. Get back to town and cleaned up to make the most of all Missoula has to offer in the late afternoon and evening.
Skill is rewarded in August. A well placed hopper in just the right spot next to a log jam or a solid reach cast on target to a rising trout is the way to find the biggest trout during summer. Take advantage of your existing skills and be willing to learn some new ones. Time spent learning new fly fishing skills will pay off for seasons to come.
Take what the river gives you. We all want to fish single dry flies to large trout. Some days we are able to pull that off. Other days the fish are pounding droppers or they want to chase a streamer. Other times the trout fishing is off all together and we are able to have fun sessions chasing northern pike or smallmouth bass. Stay flexible in the summer to have the best fishing that you can. In the past week our biggest trout came on a streamer and another angler landed a solid pike for the biggest fish of her career. They adapted to the conditions and had a great trip.
We are enjoying some solitude and good fishing this August. Not much in the way of forest fires and no fishing restrictions yet. There are definitely some secrets of summer fishing and our anglers have been enjoying themselves on the river.
Summer Fishing Season in Missoula
Summer fishing season has finally arrived in Missoula! A big snow year combined with a cool and wet spring resulted in high water all through May and June. There were some great moments, but we did not see consistent dry fly fishing like we always hope for in June. That has changed. All the Missoula area rivers are dropping and clearing, and the dry fly bite has gained momentum in the last few days.
Based on the current conditions this looks to be our best July and August in several years. There have been many years where are temps are in the 80’s-90’s by mid-June and by the time we get to July we are meeting at dawn to take advantage of the cool weather and active trout. Yesterday we saw a high of 63 and we have been able to meet at a leisurely 8 am for weeks.
All of the Missoula rivers have plenty of water and the water temperatures are ideal for this time of year. The next couple of weeks will produce a myriad of good hatches from golden stoneflies, pale-morning duns, green drakes, yellow sallies, and caddis. During hot, low water years we run through our hatch cycles very quickly, but during high water years the hatches are much more sustained. The last high water year produced a golden stone hatch that went through the third week in July and we could very well see that again this year.
August is our sleeper month. Anglers are a little hesitant about fishing in August because of the chance of fishing restrictions and forest fires. As a result August has become the month with the least amount of river traffic during the entire season. If you enjoy solitude then August is the month for you. In a high water year we can have fantastic dry fly fishing in August. Hoppers are the main game, but there are also good hatches of tricos, fall drakes, and spruce moths.
We will be in shorts and sandals for the next couple months enjoying the best that summer fishing season has to offer. It promises to be some of our best dry fly fishing this year and the crowds will thin by mid-July. If you have a trip planned your in luck, and if you are thinking of coming out we still have some availability left.
Hero or Zero Season
Hero or zero season has finally arrived in western Montana. At least that’s how I like to think about this time period when the rivers are finally dropping, but there are still a lot of questions about the fishing. In the next 10 days or so I am fairly certain that I will see some of the very best fishing of the season, but there will be heartache too. The only question is how much?
As a guide I try to gather as much information as possible to make my fishing decisions. Angler ability, reports from fellow guides, streamflows, weather, hatches, etc. all factor in to the decision of where to go each day. That decision is more important now than at any other time period during the season.
Some years I will have stretches where I make the right call 4 or 5 days in a row. The fishing is incredible, the clients think you walk on water, and if you’re not careful you’ll start to believe it a little bit too. Then there are stretches when you miss the call 4 or 5 days straight. The fishing is tough to downright miserable, your clients wonder if you really have a guide license, and you fill out applications for Subway at night.
The misses always hurt, but they are a little easier to take when you gamble on something that no one else is fishing. Those are home run days where you either hit it out of the park or strike out swinging. The misses that start to mess with your head are when you are off by only a few river miles, either just above or below the action. Hearing a fishing report from a buddy who killed them 5 miles downstream while you were getting it shoved is absolutely brutal. It happens to everyone, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
The problem with Missoula, and it’s a good problem, is that there is so much water. If we just had one river then we’d fish it everyday, take the good with the bad and move one. Not here, we have 350 miles and 4 different watersheds in play over the next 2 weeks. Every day, some guide on some stretch is going to have off the charts fishing. Other guides are going to go home with their tails between their legs. It’s not just chance or dumb luck, there is a method to the madness but there are no guarantees either.
I guess that is what makes June so unique. The chance at having the best fishing of the year, even your life, on any give day mixed with the very real possibility of coming up short. It’s not the best thing for a guide’s mental health or liver but it certainly keeps things interesting.
Missoula Spring Fishing – Highs and Lows
Missoula spring fishing is some of the very best of the season. Single dry fly fishing with big foam bugs is hard to beat, but it can also be tough fishing when the conditions do not cooperate. There are highs and lows to every spring fishing season around Missoula and it’s a mere matter of timing.
Rarely in the fishing world can you expect great rewards without some degree of risk. In other words, there is no “guaranteed” best time to go fishing in Missoula, or anywhere for that matter. It’s really up to each individual to decide what type of angler they are. Do you like to play it safe? If so, then come out in July when you have the best chance to find clear water in all the streams and warm weather. The fishing is likely to be respectable too, and lots of anglers come each year in July and love it.
But you want to catch big fish on dry flies don’t you? If that’s the case then you better buckle up, it could be a bumpy ride. I am 100% confident that more big brown trout were caught on dries in this past week around Missoula than were netted in the entire month of July last year. The catch is, I couldn’t make that claim about this same week in April of 2017. And that’s the rub, when the fishing is good in the spring it is incredible, but there is no reliable way to predict when it will happen.
What we do know is that every year between March and April we will see a high number of our biggest trout of the year on dry flies. Some years it’s the 3rd week of March, others the 2nd week of April, and when we are lucky like this year we will get a 4 week run of solid fishing that could produce the biggest trout of the year on any given day.
You could get snowed on, it might be windy, and the rivers could bump out of shape on you. That’s simply the price of admission for what could be the best dry fly fishing you have ever seen. If you don’t swing for the fences then you’ll never hit a home run. It has been a great week of spring fishing around Missoula and now we are looking down the barrel of some challenging conditions. If things break in our favor we will be netting a bunch of 20+” trout in the days ahead. If not then we will scratch and claw to make it happen. Either way we will be happy to not be playing it safe.