Clark Fork River near St. Regis, MT

[sagefisher]

Clark Fork River report: (June 25 & 26)


The river has been dropping at a steady but slow pace, making fishing conditions just about perfect. As I am getting ready to leave for Montana, the Clark Fork River is down to 6,290 cfs compared to some friends of mine, Bill & Howard who fished it when the flow rate was 10,300 just a couple weeks ago. The weather for this Saturday & Sunday is sunny and warm.


I arrived in St. Regis late Friday evening, having stopped in CdA to have dinner with Jack Hise. Traffic all the way through WA & ID was very heavy plus they are working on the road going up Look Out Pass so it was one lane at 20 mph behind a semi rig.


The next morning Brooks Sanford a friend and guide with the Clark Fork Trout guide service picked me up at 9:00 am. We did the 14 mile drift from St. Regis to the 14 mile bridge. The weather was still partly cloudy, having rained hard all the previous day and into the night, but was clearing. I started off nymphing using my Sage 11 foot XP 6 weight, my favorite nymphing rod and hooked up on 4 very fat and sassy Whitefish, they all put up a good fight then I caught a very fat Cutthroat.


Brooks had me switch over to a dry fly, a large red half Chernobyl. There were very few bugs coming off at the time, but there were some PMD's and Drakes and a few Caddis. Nothing like the big red ant, but Brooks had had good luck on his guided trip the day before so it was worth a try. Yes, well worth a try. With only a few exceptions, that was the fly I caught most of my fish on all day long. Rainbows and Cutthroats.


I had two dry fly rods rigged up. My IFFF Thomas & Thomas 5 weight and a Hardy rod I bought at the Western Rocky Mountain Council IFFF Fly Fishing Expo in CdA. The big red fly was on the T&T, and Brooks placed a PMD dry fly on the 10 foot, 4 weight Hardy rod.


At one point, while I was still nymphing, my rig had gotten all messed up on a missed set and Brooks had pulled over to the bank and was retying everything. I saw a small sip in a foam line, then another and another. I grabbed my T&T rod and made a few casts but they ignored the fly. Brooks suggested using the Hardy rod with the PMD. The fish were feeding a mere 15 feet from me so I made a very sort cast, fully expecting a dink, in other words, a very small trout. Nope, I got a huge surprise when what turned out to be a very, very fat 19 inch Rainbow grabbed my fly and took off for the faster water in the river. That was a great fight, and we were able to net him, get a quick photo and release him back into the river.


It didn't take long for the sun to come out in full force and the clouds were very scattered. Even with that the fish were still interested in taking dries.


My morning fishing up to lunch turned out to be the most productive fishing for me. After lunch the fishing really slowed down and the day got hotter. But I was still able to get a few fish and by the end of the float I had 28 fish to the boat.


The next morning Brooks picked me up at 8:00 am and we did a 15 mile drift from Superior to St. Regis. It was a very hot day, virtually no cloud cover at all so we were not sure how the fish would respond to the dry fly. But we started off with the big red and started catching some fish. After a lull, Brooks tried a large purple ant pattern and that worked for a while. Fishing was slower than the day before but all the trout I was catching were very fat from a winter of great feeding and they were all full of energy and willing to put up a fierce fight. With the slower fishing we started trying different dry flies and finally I switched to nymphing again, using a Pat's Rubber Legs stonefly pattern and a PT dropper. The Pats was the most productive nymph, even the Whitefish were taking it.


I was back to using the big red and had caught a nice Cutthroat, so we drifted into a little back eddy below a bridge to land the fish. We noticed that there were slurpers in several seams and foam lines so Brooks brought out the Hardy with a parachute Adams. We took three more fish out of those seams, casting to the rises.


Then it was back to trying the various rods, trying to figure out what the fish wanted since they were not being consistent.


Again, the afternoon was a whole lot slower than the morning fishing. It became very warm and a wind started blowing up river adding to the problems. The dry flying just about died off totally so I did more nymphing until we could see some rises, then it was back to a few casts with a dry, then back to nymphing.


Even though the fishing was a little harder than it had been the day before, I still managed to get 24 fish to the boat. The river was still slowly dropping. When I got home on Monday I checked the level and saw that the river was down to 5,600 cfs. It had not dropped on Friday, due to the heavy rains, but it also did not go up that night. So, on Saturday it had continued its slow drop.


I had two great days of fishing and all of the fish were looking really healthy and as I said, fat and sassy. If you want to book a couple days on the Clark Fork River, call the Clark Fork Trout guide service at 406-382-0161 or go on line at www.ClarkForkTrout.com. Steve Temple is the owner and he and his guides know the river very well and will give you a great trip, if the fish cooperate. Steve is in the process of building his fly shop, which is located right across the road from the river access put in/pull out just north of St. Regis. A great location and it should be a really good fly shop. Stop by and check it out.

Larry ---sagefisher---