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.