Checkin' In

I have to check in on things before my Livingston week. Sure enough, everything seems to be early, therefore it's fishing like it's mid to late July. I'm on the tail end of the pmds it seems, the beginning of tricos, and the caddis are around. The steelhead-like rainbows are still around too. As the saying goes, "How much backing you got on that thing?" Better have a bunch. 

I don't arrive until 10:00 a.m. from brown trout land. I swing into lone tree where there's a bunch of cars, but see a path to the bottom of the island where I can fish there and the main channel upstream for a quick evaluation. The water has tricos, with a few dead pmds and caddis.  There's a fish working here and there, but not what I would expect for the number of bugs on the water.  It's a good warm up with a couple of big fish before the afternoon breeze takes over. 

Early confirmation

They still love this one

Tonight at pelican I stand watch for a rumor of brown drakes.  Sure enough, enough to call it a hatch! There's fish in the middle of the river eating them, but I can't get out there. I've never seen 'em here, and it's not my first evening on this stretch. Might be a timing thing, everything's early this year.

One of the most iconic views in the trout fishing world, at least in mine.

Tricos, various caddis, and a few pmds on the water by 8:00 am. A riffle and a couple of seams hold a few missles from 9 to 10:30. Then it starts to cloud up and get a little breezy.  A fairly short window of some pretty cool fishing.  

The little side channel is barely flowing.

This guy was in it.

This fly and it's slight variations is leading the days.

I found out how much backing I had on my reel with this monster. About 150 ft.

This 6-inch deep riffle was a blast. I watched and caught every fish in it, including that screamer above.

Tonight's brown drake watch takes me way down river. There are a few, not as heavy as last night at Pelican, but the monster I catch . . .

This guy is 21 inches on the stick and San Juan fat

That's him!

And I thought I had put these away for the season.

Big PhD Island this morning at 3,500.

I get to PhD Island about 8:15, and there's fish doing it on the downstream end. I get out the Toro and engage the soft hackle blade. A sparse 18 early, followed by a curved shank 16 when the tricos disappear.

There's a row of fish in the slick, and in between wind gusts they nearly all eat in the slow, uniform slick, where every cast is a good dead drift. The foot-deep inside channel is fun too. Perfect visibility for long casts and killer takes. The human hatch has grown to Saturday levels, but bugs not so much. The top of the run is too skinny for boats to float down, so I still have it to myself. About noon I call it mowed, or MO'd.

Just magic.

Fish rise all morning in the little slick, created by the wind "cushion" on the right bank.

A variation of this is the magic all morning. Sometimes a light partridge hackle version.

This evening at the palace is pretty nice, although a little breezy, but no brown drake's are spotted.

I do manage to catch a couple at sunset.

I love mornings at Bull Pasture.

The water is low.  The sun here doesn't crest the NE hill until around 8 am.

I'm in the water shortly after 6:00 a.m.  there's a few fish already rising to something on the flat at the top of the big island.  I get a couple to eat the soft hackle before moving down the inside bend. I get a couple more to eat, but it slows down once the sun starts shining on the water.  The trico show never really happens, and the lack of targets forces an early move just before 10:00.  A quick scoot down to PhD where they were doing it yesterday, and there's a few in there now.  I take a huge brown on the outside of the island while a few fish work the skinny inside channel.  This, too, only lasts about an hour.  Gunner and I have only seen the tail end of it.  It's a noon ending to a lackluster morning, the exception being the monster brown.

21 on the stick, and thick.

I go back to camp for lunch and a nap, and return just before 6:00 p.m., this time to Lone Tree.  I'm the only vehicle there, and as I look down into the channel, it sure seems weedy. I see a few fish working the center, so I go up through the gate and get in to work down to them.  Now I see it's weedy all right, really weedy. And there's little mayflies all over the water, small beetis looking.  Bigger than a trico, but not much. Maybe they are tricos. There's a few pmds and Caddis with them too. But man is it weedy mess. It gets on the fly, travels down the fly line, and makes it hard to find an opening to deliver the fly to any rising fish.

It's been mostly clean all week.  Sure enough I look at the USGS site, and they've raised the water 200 CFS since this morning. That doesn't sound like much, but all of a sudden there's weeds and bugs everywhere.  The evening turns into a pretty good one with constant targets.  They're hard to feed because the salad on the surface doesn't leave too many open places for a fly to land, and good luck seeing the fly most of the time. I finally crack the code and stick a few bank feeders with a size 14 Caddis and the biggest hanger in my box.

So this begs the questions, did the slight increase in flow trigger the bugs?  Was I just in the right place at the right time without the wind blowing for a change?  Has it been buggy up here every night while I've been fishing down river and looking for brown drakes?  It shall remain a mystery, but this is how I remember summer evenings on the Mo.

Weeds and bugs

Weedy mess

Evening caddis right after sunset

On this final morning before the move to Livingston, I have the rig at Lone Tree, prepared to walk up to barb wire since there's already cars parked up there.  The river is still garnished with moss and weeds, but at half the level of last night.  River right is messiest, center river is pretty clean. Walking down the trail at 8:00 a.m. sharp and I start to lots of heads.  I get in and am surrounded. I have arrived amidst the trico hatch but before the spinner fall.  I'm in the wide open flat with a thousand different currents.  I get four fish on four different flies, never figuring it out.  A late morning downstream wind puts the finish on it. 

Trico clouds

A new Wolf Creek lunch spot.  Simple and tasty.

Teriyaki beef and chicken

And . . . What's this?  It looks like cell service is coming to beautiful downtown Craig Montana and the surrounding corridor.  They're working on it.

Finished Up

It starts earlier today. 9:00 am there's a couple of fish working the top of piggy bank next to the riffle. The water has dropped a little since my last visit, and the big riffle is just beautiful.  From a vantage point just a step up the bank, I can see 'em, watch 'em, and throw at 'em. More eat in the riffle and they all make for a nice early start to the day.

Up to the bottom of golden bank.  Its ok, but not really golden this morning.  Evening at Clarke's in the wind.  Call it good.  Onward.

All morning.  Hanger-free!

Pacing Ones Self

I'm covering far less water today. The pace matches the slow speed of the Pac Bay 4wt I built this winter. I fished it a couple of times on the Green for very early season midges, but today was the first real date with it, and I'm in love.

So it's not that hard to put the sport back in sport fishing. I use some different flies, fish some different angles, slow down and soak it in a little. Don't be so damn greedy. My head is back where it belongs now, enjoying the precious few days of sweet summer and PMD season.

I do leave the sitting ducks alone today, but there aren't as many of them. The bugs are fewer, and consequently the rises too. I am spooking fish from shallow riffles that were probably rising yesterday.

I have been noticing a bunch of logs sticking out from the bank like this all up and down the creek, and it took a few days to realize that they have been placed there. They're all 90 degrees to the current, and anchored into the cut bank.  Not sure who did it, but nice to see effort being made.  There's been a big fish feeding behind nearly every one of them!

I have to play the long game on the flat water. I take my time, wait for the ones I miss to come back up, and watch others spook away on the first cast.  

Purposefully restricting myself, it was time for the floating nymph with the little hanging wiggly tail.  It got some good eats.

There were some big spooky mothers here that kept me busy for a while.

I try to not use spinners, hangers, and soft hackles today, just to see. It's hard!  I mean that's over three fourths of what's in my PMD boxes.  So I cave and bring out the delicate long distance game with a soft hackle, and that ups the fool-a- big-fish rate to give me a chance.  I engage a few fish for up to 20 minutes, on and off.  Win some, lose some.

Another rainbow

I see a big swirl here and think it's a muskrat. But then I see it again, and it's a fish eating. After the soft hackle fails and I switch back to the hanger for the first time today, the fish of the month eats the fly of the month and becomes the splash and toilet flush of the month. But I have nothing to show for it. It happens.

This legendary great is a winner right through the evening bite today.  It's sparse, it's alive, with Antron, hares mask, and partridge. What more do you want or need in a fly?  Shows up grade on a light background too.

As I wait and process one that's going to sting for a while, I see a pretty good head directly across the creek on the left side. Could it be him? There won't be any doubt if I catch it. It's the biggest fish I've seen here. After a couple more rises I'm pretty sure it's not him but it's a nice one. Two fly changes later I catch it.  

Hey, other than casting at the one giant fish, I went hanger-free today!  Never tied on a traditional spinner of any sort either.  I probably won't make a habit of it though.  But it's good to know I can if I want to. 🤣