Clark Fork River, Montana July 18 & 19

[sagefisher]

Clark Fork River Drift July 18 & 19, 2011

I arrived in St. Regis, Montana Sunday afternoon, popped into the Clark Fork Trout & Tackle
http://clarkforktrout.com/
fly shop and bought some tying materials. Jackie Sanford was staffing the shop since Brooks was out guiding on the river. We have been keeping a close eye on the Clark Fork, with hopes that the river would get down to around 18,000 cfs by Monday. The river is brown but it looks like there is 2 to 3 feet of visibility and they have been catching fish all week so I have good expectations.

Monday morning--Woke up this morning at 5:00 AM. Cleaned all three of my fly lines, gave them a good stretch and put floatant/cleaner on each one. Installed new leaders, I am going with 3X Rio Trout tapered mono leaders, 9 feet in length. Noticed that on my 11 foot 6wt Sage XP, my Orvis large arbor reel was a bit loose. Took the reel off the rod and tightened the two screws that hold the reel seat feet or whatever they call it and that took care of the problem.
Checked the flow rate when I first got up, it was at 18,700. Two hours later it was at 18,600. Yep, the river is coming down. I am ready, hope the fish are.

Finished fishing on day one. I had a very good day today on the 14 mile section from St.Regis to the 14 mile bridge. Bryan Duncan was my guide. I caught 30 fish today. Rainbows, Cutthroats, CutBows, Whitefish, a Chub and a couple Northern Pike Minnows. The only fish I didn't hook on to today was a Brown. Most of the fish I caught were Bows and Cutts. Six of them were from 17 inches to 19.5 inches, very fat and sassy. Len Zickler and his brother Danny fished with Brooks Sanford and they did very well also, getting 40 fish to the boat.

We all nymphed all day long, virtually nothing was rising however there were some hatches of Micro Caddis, Caddis, PMD's, and Golden Stones. But nymphing was the order of the day, using mostly Pat's Rubber Legs, a large Prince Nymph which qualifies as a stonefly imitator and a 20 Incher, another stonefly imitator (by the way, it did not live up to its name, the biggest I caught with it was a 19.5 incher J. ) We also fished a black cone head Woolly Bugger for a while. I bet a Yuk Bug would also work. The Clark Fork is the largest river in Montana and we often use almost all of the leader plus the two sections of tippet below the strike indicator. This time we only had about 6 feet between the strike indicator and the bottom fly.

When I got back to the motel I checked the river level and it was at 18,000 cfs, whoops, just checked it again and it is at 17,900 cfs, yep, it is going down. River water temperatures stayed between 61.2 and 61.9 degrees all day, even with the air temperature getting up into the low 90's. There is still too much flow for the water to be heated by the sun.

When we were on the river and I smelled smoke, then we saw the smoke rising from behind a hill. Sure enough, there was a forest fire. The smoke kept getting thicker and then we could hear the choppers bringing in water. When we got off the river the road was closed for about 30 minutes while they got the fire under control, looks like it started right alongside the highway, you don't suppose some idiot caused that by tossing out a burning object do you? Naw, people are too smart to do something dumb like that.

River level on Tuesday morning is 17,700, nope, make that 17,600 just an hour later. Yea, it is going down nicely. They are calling for possible thunderstorms in the afternoon, I don't mind the rain as long as it doesn't bump up the river or muddy it too much, but there is something about lightning that I don't like.

Brooks is going to pick me up at 9:00 AM and we are going to fish above St. Regis, mainly the Dry Creek area then down to St. Regis. Should be a good drift, I hope. It is time to clean my fly lines and give them a good stretch and put on new leaders.

Note to self, buy more Loon Line Speed and some more 3X leaders.

Oh what a day I had today. In a nut shell, I caught 42 fish, could have had more but a really bad storm descended upon us and we wisely got off the river. But, I caught 42 fish and the biggest one was a very fat 21 inch CutBow that had to weigh 4 pounds. He put up a great fight, we grabbed a photo and sent him back to grow some more.

As I mentioned Brooks and I had decided to do the Dry Creek to St. Regis drift. The day started off fairly decent, the clouds started building and the wind kicked up, switching from going down stream to up stream to down and on and on. Bit of a problem there, especially when the wind finally settled in by blowing really hard up stream so Brooks had to row against it all afternoon.

I caught Bows, Cutts, CutBows, Whitefish, one Northern Pike Minnow and we had one other species greet us on the boat, a Red Sided Shiner I think it was called. I had handed my rod to Brooks to do some casting as my arm was really getting tired and cramping. He caught two fish at the same time. A nice Bow on the top fly and a Red Sided Shiner on the dropper.

As for what flies we used, well, there was the San Juan Worm, both chenille and one that was red copper wire wrapped. A cone head black Woolly Bugger, as well as the Pat's Rubber Legs, and the 20 incher (which actually caught my 21 incher J), and a Pheasant Tail, which caught a fair number of fish as well. The top three flies? Pat's Rubber Legs, San Juan Worm and the Pheasant Tail.

Most of the fish were gathered around the confluence where the streams and smaller rivers entered the Clark Fork. That was interesting because on the float on Monday, I didn't get any fish at the confluences down on the 14 Mile stretch.

But, all along the river today, likely looking seams sometimes held fish, so the river is starting to come back into a normal fishing pattern.
Brooks really outdid himself on getting me onto fish today and I had an absolute blast.

I can't wait to go again, soon, real soon.....

Larry ---sagefisher---