Missouri River near Craig, MT

[sagefisher]

A Missouri River Fishing Report

By Larry ---sagefisher---

Recently five of us left Puget Sound for the Missouri River between Craig and Cascade in Montana. Three AFF club members, Bill, Al and myself along with two PSFF members, Mike and Lee. We traveled in two vehicles. Putting all five of us in one rig along with all of our gear (ever wonder why we have so much 'stuff'?) makes for a very crowded ride. So Bill and I offered our rigs for the trip.

It is a long way to Arnie Gidlow's Missouri Riverside Outfitters & Lodge, like 650 miles and a lot of it not freeway. The usual travel time is about 14 hours from my place and with Mike coming up from the Lacey doing a one day drive to the lodge would have put us way into the night for our arrival, then to have to unpack and get our gear together for the next day would have meant we would all be dog tired on our first day of fishing. So, we left our area around noon, made a short stop at the Worley Bugger Fly Co. shop in Ellensburg, the kept going to a motel in the Spokane area to spend the night.

The next morning we had breakfast and then headed east again towards the Missouri. We stopped in St. Regis, to get Al his Montana fishing license, stock up on some liquid refreshments and swing by the still being built Clark Fork Trout fly shop. Steve Temple was busily working on his place, hoping to get a roof on the building within just a few days. He should have that up and running sometime in June. Then we kept going, stopping for dinner in Lincoln, MT. Sorry to say the restaurant had a new cook and he was not really qualified to be called a cook. Enough said. We arrived at Arnie's lodge and unloaded all of our 'stuff'. We had to go in search of a missing bag that really was not missing, but stuff like that happens and gives us good ammo for stories to be told in the future.

Prior to us leaving, I had been checking on the river levels of the Missouri River as well as the Dearborn River. The Missouri River, in that area, is controlled by the Holter Dam and they had been releasing a decent amount of water, keeping the flow at a fairly constant rate, which is perfect for fishing. The Dearborn is a free running river, but if it rains hard or has a lot of snow runoff, it can really muddy up the Missouri, which simply means we would fish above the confluence of those two rivers. Naturally, the controllers of the water at the dam decided to start dumping out large flows on the day we left for Montana. The river had been holding at around 5,550 cfs, but all of a sudden they jumped it up to 6,525 the day we left and then on the day we were to start fishing they kicked it up to 6,800 and for our second day of fishing they increased it to a very fast flowing 7,200 cfs. How nice of them to do that for us????..(deleted words)?..!

Along with the slightly murky water from the dam dump, there was just a little color coming off the Dearborn, but not bad enough to stop us from fishing the upper canyon area. Then we also had the fact that we were between hatches (they call it a ?tweener time?) so the fish were not real active on surface activity since there was very little of that. The end of the BWO's, and March Browns with very few of them out and about. A pseudo mayfly hatch was coming off the water, very small, about the size of a Trico, but grayish brown in color. On the second day we saw a handful of size 16 Caddis on the water, and that was it.

The first day we put in at Craig and drifted down to the Dearborn takeout. I was fishing with Artie that day and he had me start off with a San Juan Worm and a very small mayfly nymph pattern, but after a couple hookups and fish to the boat, both on the small nymph, he removed the SJW and I fished two nymph styles for most of the rest of the day. I caught nine fish that day, most were Rainbows and most in the 16 to 18 inch range. All were fantastic fighters. There were several fish that never made it to the boat but gave me lots of fun. The water temperature was 50 degrees and the fish were very spunky, jumping like crazy multiple times. I even had one almost jump into the boat but he bounced off the gunwale and back into the water. Great fishing. My morning fishing saw most of my action. Along with the ones that I got to the boat, there were a number that came off prior to that. My afternoon fishing slowed down a lot for some reason. The other two boats were just the opposite. Their mornings were very slow but it picked up in the afternoon. It was a good day considering the water conditions. I did try some dry flying but with only a single fish and a few missed hits.

We had a great dinner that night. Crab stuffed Chicken breasts, honey glazed carrots, and fettuccini (white sauce and basil). Then for dessert we had a brownie covered in warm chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream. Yea, we live it real rough on these trips.

The next day we drifted from Dearborn to Prewett Creek. The river had come up a lot during the night. I fished with Arnie and we started off nymphing which produced some fish, all on the small mayfly style nymphs. The fishing was a lot harder, with fewer hits and lots of junk in the water from the increased flows (thanks again to the great water flow experts). We started seeing some rises close to shore in a few areas so Arnie had me switch to a dry fly rig. At first it was a Parachute Adams along with a very small Pheasant Tail as a dropper. The first fish to hit was on the Adams. After a few more near misses, we switched to two dries and fished those the rest of the day.

I got eight fish to the boat that day with many more missed and a some break offs. The Browns were hungry, but you had to cast to within 3 inches of the shore in that fast flowing water. That can be a difficult target on the best of days for many of us who are not casting experts, but there was one more factor that sort of contributed to the casting and fishing experience. A four letter word known as WIND. Oh yes, it was very windy all day, and the wind switched around and swirled when it wanted to, with a fairly steady wind of 10 to 15 MPH plus those every so friendly gusts of 25 MPH+.

But, if you got your fly into that very narrow zone of 3 inches from the shore, brush, tree limbs, and such, there was a good chance of catching a decent Brown. My biggest was a measured 21 incher, fat and sassy, and the next largest was a measured 20 incher, just a little more slender.

We were all very tired after that day of fishing. Fighting the wind was wearing on all of us. Arnie invited us all up to his house for a grilled steak dinner out on his patio, which overlooks the whole valley, great view! Then we retired to the lodge and started packing up all our gear preparing to store it all away in the rigs for our trip home the next morning.

We left the lodge at 0530 hours (5:30 AM) Mountain Daylight time and headed back to Lincoln for breakfast. I asked at the gas station where a good place was for breakfast and they pointed to the tavern across the street. It really was a good place, especially compared to the other place. About 650 miles and 13 hours later Al and I pulled into his place. Lee, Mike and Bill had all gathered in Bill's rig in Spokane and they all drove to Bill?s place and then Mike and Lee continued on their way.

It was a good trip and considering the man caused water levels, we did real good.