Bozeman Angler Blog
I’m not sure if it was the green long underwear or the Guinness I packed in, but something gave me some good luck this St. Patrick’s day. I headed to the Upper Madison and had a bluebird day full of descent sized rainbows. Right from the get go I tied on a size 10 bead head prince nymph trailed by a size 16 pink delekta sex fly and stuck with the combo all...
The fishing on the Lower Madison over the last month and a half has been lights out. We were finding fish in the shallow flats, in the deep pools, and in runs below the riffles. But, we also had consistant water conditions. This week the water levels have spiked or dropped a couple hundred CFS every other day and this has slowed the fishing down considerably. The fish are still eating crayfish, San Juans, and eggs, but not quite as eagerly as the week before. One thing you can count on...
Took a nice hike into Bear Trap Canyon on sunday after a saturday afternoon report from Sam Bergman that he had gone up that way and fished midge dries all day long. That was all i needed in making my decision on where to fish. I didn't find too many fish rising when i started the day so i threw nymphs at first. As with usual madison activity the trout just hammered pink sex flies and pink scuds (both size 14 and 16). I also tried olive and copper...
Friday i had the good fortune of fishing the missouri river, a truly amazing piece of big water with big fish close enough to bozeman to be able to get in the water after a 45 minute drive, depending on were you access. First i tried the go to Delekta sex fly in size 14(killer bug all over right now) trailed by midge pupas(red and grey twinkles size 18 and zebra midge size 18). A fairly standard pattern for the missouri which produced a couple decent...
Last thursday i woke up with the burning desire to hike and find different spots in the gallatin canyon. I spent the first thirty minutes of the day just moving my feet to get away from the usual spots. My efforts were generously awarded with first stumbling upon a pod of trout in slow gin clear water occasionally rising to midges. After landing about ten gorgeous 10"-14" rainbows on orange blood worms (size 14) and olive, black, or brown rubberlegs (size 6-10) i felt...
So, the fishing on the Lower Madison has been so good, I can't stay away from it. I went back again today and found that the fish didn't want anything but crayfish patterns and midge nymphs. I even threw a San Juan Worm and an egg for a bit, and not even a nibble.....Fine with me.
TY
This week Pete and I headed west and found ourselves floating the Lower Madison looking for pre-spawn Rainbows. Those of you familiar with this stretch of water know that trying to unlock its secrets can be an exercise in futility. Pete and got lucky and hit the Madison on one of her good days and were rewarded with sun shine, low winds, and hungry trout. Though we did find a couple of fish from the boat, most were caught while wading and thoroughly fishing the small...
Here at The Bozeman Angler, if we're not on the water chasing winter trout, we're sitting at the tying bench, pounding away at feathers, dubbing, and flash to create tantalizing treats with big fish dreams dancing in our heads. It's fly tying season, anglers, and we aim to bring you the local masters so that you can trick...
This past week of decent weather has allowed us to move around local waters with comfortability and good fishing results. Tuesday I hiked the East Gallatin and finally got into my first good sized fish on the east for this Winter! Started off using tiny deer hair sculpin patterns size 8 and 10 and found some browns ready to attack. The sculpin pattern was the only thing i found that the browns keyed in on but the rest of the day was filled with angry macho rainbows going after...
This week, former Bozeman Angler spey guru, Lawrence Stuemke, joined Peter and I for a day on Armstrong's Spring creek. For those of you that haven't messed around on this world famous pieces of private water, this one of those places that can, and often does, humble the most skilled fly anglers. The water is about 50 degrees year round, gin clear, and full of educated trout. The fish this time of the year, like...
Recently, both Peter and I have had the itch to break away from winter wade fishing and get the boats out and float. So yesterday we drug my trusty RO drift boat out of storage and pulled it...
This last week has brought us some mighty fine fishing weather, so Pete, Jay, and myself took full advantage of the warm temps and hit some local water. The fishing reports that we’ve been getting in the shop the last few days have been so inconsistent, it’s been hard to gat a read on what the fish are doing. In the last week we’ve had four anglers fishing the Williams bridge...
I kicked off the 2010 fishing season in the Bear Trap Canyon on the Madison River with my gal pal, Sarah and local trout sicko, Sam Bergman. We got up real good and early to get a jump on the fish before they knew what hit'em. Like, 11:00 in the morning early. One of the nice thing about fishing trout in the winter is that you don't have to bust your fanny to the river at the crack of dawn in order to get there before the other fishermen and the heat of the day. Peak fishing hours this time...
Last week the world lost a truly unique and wonderful person. My family and I are deeply saddened by the passing of Jack Gartside. He was a wonderful friend and companion. You will be missed but not forgotten, Jack. I’ll think of you often because you made me laugh and showed me that is was OK to be different, even a little eccentric. Good by my friend, I will see you on the other side.
Rod King
Sarah and I headed east this week to fish the worlds most famous tail water fishery, the Big Horn River. The trip started out with a little excitement in...
We’ve been fishing out on the Gallatin the past couple days with some luck. We started fishing close to the canyon and have been working downstream since. Closer to the canyon we were able to find some deep runs that were just filled with rainbows, and of course lots of whitefish. They were mainly hitting dead drifted olive bead head buggers, zonkers, prince nymphs, and San Juan worms. The next day we decided to pack our bags and head out to the Big City (aka. Manhattan) where the East Gallatin...
Clients, Steve and Asa, came back for their second trip this season to the Yellowstone River for some early fall Salminoid love. Though we did run into a few trout, the only true love was coming from the hoards of...
thought some of you might be interested in seeing this. How many mice can a brown trout fit in its belly? Also, if you havent seen it yet check out thisisfly.com, it is a great online publication on fly fishing. One of my favorites.
Some of us here in the Bozeman area feel like we were screwed out of about a month of summer. The month of June was officially changed to Junuary. It'...