Warmer & WET WEATHER!!
Hell or high water, we’re still fishing! The cold weather has continued since the last blog, but a change is in the air. We finally are starting to see some warmer days here and there. May has brought us lots of high elevation snow and the Flathead and other freestone rivers in Montana are still dealing with peak run-off type conditions. Lakes have been our target this past month, and they are fishing well!
If you find yourself targeting trout or grayling on lakes consider fishing a leech pattern of some sort, we’ve been catching a lot of fish on balanced leeches! Green, greenish-orange, brown and wine colors have been working best for us. If you decide to throw a leech on you have a few different ways to fish them, the easiest being letting the leech sink and very, very slowly retrieve about three inches at a time. If this method isn’t producing fish, consider presenting the leech under an indicator, use the indicator to play around with the depth you are fishing in. When fishing a leech under an indicator you should also be dropping a second fly off the leech such as a perdigon, chironomid, worm, zebra midge, or a pheasant tail. In the lakes around here that hold trout we are starting to see some post spawn fish so the lake bite should continue to be good for the next few weeks.
Starting to see the pike bite improve this past week, getting multiple reports of pike being caught on the fly! The weather this coming week looks like it could be conducive to seeing the pike fishing improve. Bass fishing has been getting better as well, starting to see fish on beds this past week. Top water action for bass hasn’t quite started but clousers and crayfish patterns are getting them in the boat.
Patience is at play on the rivers, flows have been up and down and now up again the past couple weeks. Probably looking at about another month or run-off conditions. When getting out on the water practice safety, boating ethics, and be nice to each other! We are about to be invaded by people, try to be respectful!
Go get bent!
