Clark Fork River, Montana July 2010

[sagefisher]

Clark Fork River July 6/8, 2010

Bill Fox and I just spent three very nice days fishing the Clark Fork River in western Montana, in the St. Regis area. The weather was sunny and hot with days up into the middle 80's to lower 90's, but the river stayed cool, around 60 degrees, and slowly lowered from the rain induced levels of a week prior to our arriving.

Brook Sanford of the Clark Fork Trout & Tackle shop http://www.clarkforktrout.com/
was our guide for all three days.

Day One: We drifted the 14 mile stretch from St. Regis to the 14 Mile Bridge. We started off nymphing with big Pat's Rubber Legs stone fly nymphs plus a dropper, and once we saw that the fish were mainly only hitting the Pat's Rubber Legs nymphs, we started using two of the Pat's nymphs. Later on we started using some Prince Nymphs and Hare's Ears as droppers below a Pat's nymph. Fishing that morning, up until around 1 PM was absolutely fantastic. We had so many doubles, where Bill and I both had fish on at the same time, that we lost count of how many doubles we had, not to mention how many fish we actually caught that day. I am very confident in saying that we caught over 60 fish on the first day. After lunch the action slowed down. We tried casting dries and managed to catch a few, but we went back to nymphing and the action picked up again. I caught a nice Brown trout the first thing in the morning and that was the only Brown we caught. The rest of the time we were catching Rainbows and Cutthroats and CutBows. All of the fish we caught ranged from 14 inches to 19 inches, with many being in the 16 inch range. Also, all of these fish were very fat, their food source is abundant and they have been eating like crazy turning themselves into footballs. They all were very willing to fight and some were jumpers while others tried to run either upstream or downstream.

Day Two: We did a 15 mile drift from Superior to St. Regis, pushing through some of the areas that do not produce as many fish. Fishing was harder. We did mostly nymphing, caught a few on dries, but went back to nymphing as it produced the best results. We managed to catch 37 fish that day, and again all of these fish were football shaped, in other words, fat and sassy. I even had one fish get me into my backing, something that doesn't happen very often when fishing for trout. We had a good day, but the fish were harder to locate, they were not in their 'normal haunts' but we did manage to find enough to keep us happy. We tried a variety of nymphs, Pat's Rubber Legs as well as the Prince Nymph, Lightening Bugs, Hare's Ears and Pheasant Tails. No fly was really consistent that day.

Day Three: We did the 14 mile drift again from St. Regis to the 14 Mile Bridge. This time we found the fishing to be like Day Two, slower but steady. We caught some very nice fish, but not as many as on the first day, and the fish were not always in the same locations, so we did a lot of searching for them. But, we ended the day with 38 fish, and again, all were very healthy and fat. Most were caught on nymphs, some on dry flies. We finally ended up not using the Pat's Rubber Legs nymphs and switched to Pheasant Tails, Red Copper Johns, Prince Nymphs and Hare's Ears.

All in all, Bill and I had a great time and left St. Regis happy campers.

Here is a link to my Photobucket slideshow http://s661.photobucket.com/albums/uu332/FLYTIER01/Clark%20Fork%20River%20Montana%20July%202010/?action=view&current=21cafa4e.pbw


Larry Gibbs