Naturally

All roads and detours lead back to the Missouri.  Big trout and bugs.  Lots of caddis with PMD's still in the mix.  Tricos just starting as I leave.  Big fish.  Steelhead-like.  Backing on nearly every fish, even with 4X.  Those spring creek trout are babies here.  Weather is hot, but not roasting most days like some years.  Hotter last few days though.  Some windy days, but just write 'em off or fight it.  Every evening is bug soup, like the old days, and last year.  Flows finally decent, though still high, but fishable with a few shallower flats accessible.  No big pods or runs full of risers except at weeks end during the trico spinnerfall, but enough fish up here and there on the calm mornings, and doin' it every evening.

The Hare's Ear soft hackle (shucked) is eaten up.  #18 or #16.  They'll eat the 16.  Sparkly caddis is real good too. Galloup spinner for the PMD's and trico hatch.  The Mo CDC caddis during the trico hatch!  The shucked PMD softy worked good for the pickies in Sterling Channel.

Great sunrise caddis hatch just below the bridge a few mornings.  A pod of fish doin' it at the island for a few mornings  Some PMD's below Ma and Pa's around 9.  Fish looking up there early too, and the side channel that follows.  Things slow by 10 am, but enough bugs to keep a fish up here and there, some places a few.

Hard to float very far down river early in the morning. Hatch is over by the time I reach CA Island.  This place is busy, as usual I guess, but hard to find those risers once the flotilla starts.  Everybody pounding the good banks.  Same with the good side channels, which is all of them.  That's where the risers are at these flows.  A BUNCH of big fish in the top half of Sterling Channel (Les!).  You can wade fish the top entrance there, if you can find a parking place to access it.

All the wade fishing accesses are occupied morning and evening, and those guys are starting earlier than the boats, and staying later.  No parking in a few spots.  Did have PHD Island to myself one evening, and Sterling one afternoon.

As time has gone on, the tricos have finally appeared.  Getting thicker daily, and the sunrise caddis activity has become more sparse.  Mid-day is pretty tough now that the heat is up and not a cloud to be found most days. It slows abruptly around 10:30-11:00.  Still bug soup up and down the corridor every evening.  Late afternoons are getting too hot to fish.  That last cloudy afternoon in Sterling Channel will long be remembered though.

When I'm alone in a shallow side channel, in the early morning light; with the fish doin' it, and the drag screaming; it is somewhat reminicent of baby tarpon fishing.  The gear is only 4 weight, and the fly is a tiny fraction the size of a Gurgler.  I dead drift, not strip.  Most fish get air a few times and take all your fly line though.  They roll, only they are feeding instead of gulping air.  Afternoon temperatures hover in the high 80's, yet there's a cool river to stand in.  Sweat is minimal until you get out of the water.  Its sight fishing to the largest surface-feeding fish in the river, if not all of Montana. Maybe its all a stretch, but not much of one this time of year.

I still hate leaving this place.  It leaves a hole in my stomach every time, especially knowing it will be about 47 weeks before I get to enjoy warm days with caddis and PMD's here again.  I'll settle for baetis in September-October, I guess.

This is the 9K-12K flow for the week I was on the spring creeks

This is how it started to drop upon my arrival on the 8th.

Pretty good how I just went up there and turned that damn valve counter-clockwise myself when I got here, eh?  Ok, if it were me, I'd have turned that puppy on down to 2,500 or somethin'.

Picture Heavy!

9 days, two or three shots a day . . . 

Good evenings in the dam side channel at 6500cfs

Evening caddis blizzards there too

Good caddis for evenings and faster water.  18 and 16.  I used all I tied!

A couple evenings at PHD Island

Ma and Pa Brown

First boat down, fish rising above and below the wet island

The place to start a morning float

First great side channel, and not that busy a couple mornings..

The 'ole original Mo Caddis still has it

A pod always rising here during and after the trico fall.  A #18 Galloup got 'em.

A first cast of the morning fish

Evenings at Lone Tree.  Beaver hut washed out!

Proved its worth daily.  Best PMD going.

Only had one shot here, and spooked 'em.  See ya in September.

This little flat into a hole was fun a couple times, right above Craig.

Cattle bridge evening brown.

Man the caddis were thick.

This fooled a few picky ones at times, like upper Sterling.

Weren't doing it here the morning I went down.

Nope, not in the riffle either.

The view down upon upper Sterling

I really need bigger hands

Right in here, pigs.

Did someone say caddis?

Lest you thought every fish in the MO was 20 inches.  (But almost!)

Last one until fall.

Creek Week

Depuy's, that is.  

Mornings at Betty’s, evenings at Eva’s.  It’s mostly been a good combo.  Spinners, soft hackles, loop wings, and the hanger. (Buzzer, Mole, whatever you want to call it)  That’s all I really need other than an occasional floating nymph, Galloup cripple (spinner), or some other specialty thing.  The good morning hatch starts 10:30-11ish, and wind or thunderstorms kill it early afternoon.  Short-lived.  The evening spinnerfall starts 4-5ish, and is over around 8.  Evenints were the best fishing of the week along with the first two magic mornings.  The hatch seemed to fade as the week went on.

Day one I went back to Eva’s to just rip some lips.  Man, these creeks.  They ate the #18 pmd spinner like it was the last supper.  And it ain’t got no shuck on it!  Silly-good.  There were spinners from the start, all morning, and the regular hatch starting around 10:30.  Nearly every fish ate the spinner on the first drift, but only once.  Once I missed ‘em, they would refuse it over and over.  About 11:30 with the hatch in full swing, they did become more selective, but still took the spinner at times.  At 12:15, a little breeze came up, and then lightning at 12:30.  I went up and fished the middle a little. There were a few fish up, but none in that stretch Les speaks highly of.  A few fish above and below the culvert, but not down lower toward the pond.

Fly of the Week--They love it

Day two, I went up to Betty’s and planted below the power line.  Again, fish were up on spinners before 9am, and I proceeded to fuck up every chance I had for nearly two hours.  Some days it just doesn’t work out I guess. I was getting eaten alive on the same little spinner as yesterday.  I couldn’t hook a fish to save my life.  Maybe I need to go back to nymphs and bobbers or something.  I had dozens of eats.  The fish are a little bigger in this run too!  A few caught themselves, I guess, because the rod bent a half dozen times or so and there was a fish on the end.  But maybe I need to re-evaluate the pattern, or the hook, or something.  It was pitiful.  Maybe I ain’t as good as I once was, or thought I was.

I couldn’t have missed that many fish by accident.  Tried early, late, on time, everything I know, or thought I knew.  I rose nearly every fish in the run!  Did get some later eats on the shucked soft hackle from a couple days ago too.  Only hooked one of those.  I suck.  The hackle on the spinner is clipped flush underneath so there is nothing blocking the hook point.  I’ve used this fly for years, though more in a #16.  Maybe I’ll fish a 16 in the morning, ‘cause I’m going right back in there if I have my way.

Ha ha, can't eat me this time

Morning number three, I got to Betty’s before 8.  Wasn’t really much going on, and the hatch was much lighter than yesterday all morning.  I started with the #16 spinner, and they ate it pretty good.  Some bigger fish too.  I stuck a pig very early on, and had another run me well into the backing and say bye.

 

I had the place to myself for all but an hour or so mid-morning when a couple of Boulderites with the dreaded green “MP” plates low-holed me.  They were OK, and didn’t stay long.  I fished until early afternoon, when some wind and thunder came in.  I stayed fairly busy with a couple rounds up and down the full run, despite the weak hatch and spinnerfall.  Not a lot of either.

After lunch and a thunderstorm, I went down to Eva’s about 5:30 for the evening spinnerfall.  There were more bugs than up top this morning, and fish working them.  They were a bit selective, as each fish seemed to want a different variation.  Beside the spinner in both sizes, I had some love on a soft hackle and the Harrop.  Smaller was better.  Quit at 8, fish still rising.

Garden variety, and it worked well

Day 4 was one more return to Betty’s.  The hatch, or lack thereof, was even lighter today.  Non-existent until about 10:30, and then sparse until 11:00 right on cue.  But it was very light, with no spinners all morning.  Then the wind came up a little before noon, and that was that.  A few fish and a few takes, but nothing to write home about.   Stopped in the middle for a while, and not much there either.  Ended up at Eva’s and there was activity there.  (Surprise!)  Not sure why there is always rising fish there when there’s next to none anywhere else on the creek.  It was full of guides and clients except for the lower bend, and I didn’t do much.  Went back at 5:00, and there were fish up and the best fishing of the day from 5:30 to about 7:30.  Then, as the sun went behind the hill, it was over.  No more risers.  Strange but true.  “Typical,” said the other guy in the run with me. 

I awoke this morning to the sound of thunder, how far off I sat and wondered. Started hummin’ a song from 19. . . well, not exactly.   With no urgency though, it was Betty’s or bust one last time. I had already caught ‘em all in Eva’s, or at least most of ‘em.  I only educated the big educated ones on river right above the log, or sent 'em to the dentist.  Betty's has a bunch of 'em, and fewer people. I was first-in about 8:45, and moved up and down the run, waiting and wondering on a partly cloudy morning.  A scant few duns appeared around 10:00, and I managed to hook two very nice fish for about 5 seconds and a jump each.  Sometimes this shit lately has reminded me of that February morning in Campeche when Juan put me on tarpon every way but Sunday and I figured out a way to fuck up just about every one of ‘em.  I still carry a little bruise from that morning, but these are just trout, so it’s more like red marks. But I can still see those big heads, mouth wide open, eating the fly.  I can still feel the prick of the hook at it touches and goes, out and away.  Such is life with downstream slack-line presentations, I guess.  So I digress.

By 11:00, again right on the minute damn near, there was a little hatch.  At noon, there were as many spinners as duns, the best bug count in a couple days.  I even saw fish eat duns early on.  I got some on the #16 spinner, #18 soft hackle (shucked version), a couple on a loop wing, and a whole lot of eats on the little #18 spinner towards the end.  There were just enough bugs for a little selectivity.  Fun couple of hours though.  At 1:10, a hot south wind ripped down the valley at +25mph, and that’s all I have to say about that. 

Pay attention to what's important in the following two photos.  They say a whole lot. (Note to self!)

Curved.  Just under.  Can't see it from above.  It's what's for breakfast.

Think he wanted to eat it while I was holding him?

The end of the morning

EPILOGUE
I did go down to Eva's after the rain about 5:30, and they were up and doin' it on both duns and spinners.  In the final act, I hooked a few on the spinner, broke one off, missed the two I really wanted, tied on some 5X just to see, and got ate some more.  It really slowed down about 7:00 this time, before the sun went behind the hill.  There were strays up, but not like when I got there.