SW Montana 9/8 to 9/17

Fished around SW Montana three weeks ago and just got around to giving a belated report. We had great weather and good water conditions.
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23.5" brown on the Big Hole River

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Big Sheep creek where we were planning to fish with John Scott but he needed to finalize selling his house in ID. Thanks John, for the info on Big Sheep, it was really windy but the fishing was great that day.

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Nice brown about 15" from Grasshopper creek. Access was difficult but we found a way to the stream and it paid off. Tested out the Montana stream access law, but the locals drove us out (a herd of cattle surrounded us both on the banks and in the stream, just stared at us until we got tired of it and went upstream past another barb wire across the stream). Worked out Ok the fishing was better where the cattle weren't walking through and muddying the water.

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One of the better brookies from the upper Big Hole. Asked permission to park on a ranch and fished on their property. Brookies were podded up prior to spawning so a couple of holes had a hundred or more fish in them. It actually got silly casting in there because you were going to catch one every cast.

We were on three float trips in 9 days of fishing and on our own the other 6. We did just as well on our own as far as numbers of fish but the sizes were a little smaller on average. We fished a number of streams that were new to us and had good success on all of them.

We did catch quite a few 16" to 18" browns and rainbows on two of the float trips, but we caught a lot of 12" to 16" fish on our own. The big brown was on a float trip.

All the fish caught on our own were on dries, #14 Renegades, a #12 drake pattern from Michigan, #24 tricos and #4 hoppers. We don't fish subsurface much on our own. The float trip fish were pretty evenly split between hoppers and drakes on top and prince nymphs and wooly buggers as droppers.

This was our fifth year in SW Montana but our first time in late summer. Hope to get back there in late summer next year.

Awesome Tigfly. Thank you for the report. Those are some pretty fishes.

Tigfly,

Nice report and pics. Sounds like you had a great time with lots of fish. Nice of John to give you some tips on the Sheep. From the looks of the Sheep, that is one great place to fish. Thanks

Beaver

Glenn-

Thanks for putting up the report. I knew from your PM that you did well every where you fished, but was looking for some pics, too. That was a dandy brown you took on the Big Hole. And the "smaller" one surely has extraordinary color.

Think I fished the spot you show on Big Sheep. Glad that one worked for you - I had two really good days there and almost got skunked another day. It really is an interesting creek, with a great variety of water to fish, and some pretty nice fishies in it.

Maybe you can give me a bit of information via PM on the ranch / rancher on the upper Big Hole who let you fish off his property. The one time I was on the upper Big Hole, I was up into Skinner Meadows, which was a neat area, but kind of a long ride on a rough road. And that road looks like it would be treacherous in bad weather - lots of that nasty goo when it gets much water on it.

Here's hoping that things are settled down for me when you guys come out next year. Even if you do decide to go on down to Alpine WY for at least part of your trip, I can almost always be talked into fishing some streams in that neck of the woods, even if it is quite a way from Missoula.

John