I almost always get hung up in your threads…lol Thank you! now I gotta get up from here and head to work
… 
Gee, Tim, I hope you weren’t late for work !! Whatever would you tell the boss ??
Good to hear from you. Hope things are going well.
John
Great thread John. Thank you.
Do you ever check the water temps while you’re out? Curious as to the feeding activity vs. water temp. is why i ask. I read some article that said one might as well forget it if the water temps are below 40 degrees. I am guessing that you have managed to catch them in colder water than that.
Rich
Rich -
I don’t bother checking the temps. When you drive as far as I do most of the time, when you get there it’s time to get a fly in the water and see what the trouts are going to do. I do generally have a decent sense of when it is going to be slow or good.
Most every morning, I check the stream flow charts and weather forecast for fishing prospects in different places. When I saw this graph this morning, I was pretty confident that it would be a good day.
John
… comes in different sizes. Today I caught three brown trout under five inches, one little guy was about three inches. Also caught several cutts under six inches. The system is healthy, and I’ve seen the future !! :roll:
Still a bit of ice in the creek, but none in the guides today. Based on the surge in streamflows from a pretty decent rain event a couple days ago and the expected quick drop after the storm passed and the temps went down, there was reason for optimism. The water would probably be a bit off color and the increased depth would provide more cover in some decent spots. The surge may well have stirred up some food items for the trouts, also.
Started really slow. For about fifteen minutes. Then the fishies caught on to what was supposed to happen.
In four and a half hours, about 35 trouts went for some of the food items the surge stirred up ( or so they thought ), and about 25 needed help getting off the hook.
Very unusual day in another regard - hit the quintuple with browns, bows, cutts, cuttbows, … and a brook trout. Don’t recall ever catching a brookie in this creek.
John
P.S. Got to say - the past couple months has provided the best winter trout fishing I’ve ever had. Used to have some great whitefish days down in SE Idaho over the winter, but nothing like this for trout.
Hey John! It appears that the “Old Rubber Legs” stonefly has been cleaning up so far this year. Like you I really like winter fishing.
Bruce
Bruce -
If I were going to be limited to one fly for fishing moving water anywhere in the Intermountain West year round, it would be the rubber legs stonefly nymph, in brown, with amber flex floss legs, tail, and antennae, on a size 6 4X long streamer hook. Fortunately, that’s not the case. The other day I was looking for something in “My Pictures” and was surprised at how many trouts, and whitefish, have that fly stuck in their jaw.
This is the pic I was looking for - from the South Fork of the Snake in the fall of '08.
John
I do use some smaller nymphs on occasion, Bruce, but the rubber legs accounts for about 95% of the fish I catch over the winter. It is a good year round pattern, but when it warms up and the hatches begin ( other than midges ), I do prefer to fish dries.
John
… but by early afternoon the ice was out of the guides and it was feeling almost balmy, at least in the sun. Got on a river I haven’t fished for quite a while. Only fished for an hour and a half or so, and the action was on the slow side. The landing was good, with seven of eight hooked fish in hand.
Had an interesting surprise.
Expect to get a fair amount of time on this river in the next couple months. It has one of the earliest salmonfly hatches in the state, and it is a spawning tributary to one of the big rivers in Western Montana. Had some rather large trouts on this one last spring just before runoff.
John
Hey John, nice Bull Trout … you don’t see those every day… cool.
Doug -
That is the first bull trout that I’ve caught in Montana. I wasn’t expecting any in this creek so it was doubly exciting when I lifted him out of the water and realized what he was.
That fills out the moving water trouts card over the past week - browns, bows, cutts, cuttbows, one brookie and the bull trout.
John
… here in Western Montana, and this thread will disappear with it.
Last Sunday, there was little ice left on one of the creeks that has been very good to me over this past winter, ice or not. It has been an interesting experience, with the constant changes in the river levels and flows as ice came and went. Very seldom fished like the same creek two days in a row.
There is an interesting story about ice and a trout fly from Sunday. A George Grant style fly that was given to me the day before by Tom Harman, of Dillon MT, at a fly tying demonstration at the Grizzly Hackle in Missoula.
I had fished the fly with some success on a rather slow day of fishing. Four browns and two mountain whitefish took the Grant fly, to go with a few that ate the usual rubber legs stonefly.
On one stretch of the river, I was fishing from a remnant of the ice shelf, with a high bank behind me and water a couple feet deep right off the ice shelf.
I snagged the fly on some foliage on a backcast and it popped off. With all the rocks and little crevices in the rocks and the tangle of foliage on the steep bank behind me and the rather deep water just off the ice shelf, I considered not even bothering to look for the fly.
But George Grant flies are pretty rare these days, and this one was a gift, so I headed down to the aread where the fly would have snagged to look for it, really not having any expectation of finding it. Walked about twenty feet and looked down. There right in the middle of the 12" wide ice shelf was the fly. Six inches to the bank side and it is lost for good in the rocks and foliage. Six inches to the creek side and it is lost for good in the streambed rubble.
So what’s not to like about ice ??
John
P.S. I’m thinking there should be lots of ice left on the Idaho side of the Bitterroot Mountains still. And there are some trouts over there, too.
Whoa! Somehow I’ve missed your past few reports… Rainbows, Browns, Cutts, Cutbows, Brookie, and Bull trouts. That is absolutely amazing, impressive, awesome, exciting…I’m still not finding the right word(s)… just…WOW!!! This is SO COOL!
Glad to see you going strong John. I still enjoy your reports as I always have. Like you I really like winter fly fishing. I think it may be my favorite…of course I say that about every season when it comes. Spring is on deck!
Hi Benji -
Good to hear from you.
We’ve been having a really mild winter. Since 12-21-11, I’ve been able to get in over twenty days fishing, and that is not even taking advantage of all the really nice days.
Can’t say I have a favorite time of year to fish, but it will be nice to start rigging up with dries after months of fishing big stonefly nymphs. We should get a skwala hatch here soon, and then the salmonflies and golden stones, and hoppers, and October caddis, and then … back to the big stonefly nymphs.
Yeah, I know - tough duty, but somebody has to do it.
John
… before we start fishing hatches around here ??
Hit this run just right - in a little over an hour, it gave up a dozen trouts, about half browns and half bows.
And a very large mountain whitefish which came unbuttoned a few feet from the landing pad.
On upstream, I hit another very productive spot, that gave up another half dozen plus trouts, again about half browns and half bows.
Not quite half when you throw in a bull trout.
Thought this little guy might be the same one I caught last outing on this creek. Just about the same place and the take was quite similar. But comparing pix, it is definitely a different bull trout - my second one in Montana.
By the end of the day, something over four hours on the water, hooked around 25 fishies and landed about 18, in several different spots and quite an interesting variety of water. Quite a heavy midge hatch, but no fishies up. Won’t be long. And won’t be long before some big river spawning bows run up this creek, which is going to make for a really interesting time.
John
… with some cold, windy weather, a couple hours of snow and a bit of shelf ice here and there, and ice in the guides the entire time.
Hooked and almost landed a 15-16" rainbow in the little hole to the right of the ice shelf. The leader broke just as I started to lift him. Guess I should have retied the fly after pulling free of some instream stuff a few minutes earlier.
Ended up with a quintuple, to include several bows and whitefish, several browns and cuttbows, and a good number of cutts.
Even caught a couple snow flakes to end the day.
For the three months of winter, starting 12-20-11 and ending today, I got in twenty three days fishing. Probably had around three to three and a half hours on the water per outing. On average, hooked about twenty fish, and landed around fifteen.
Accounted for all the game fish that live in our Western Montana streams and rivers - trouts as in rainbows, cutthroat, cuttbows, browns, brook, and bull, and a decent representation of mountain whitefish. Almost all of them on a rubber legs stonefly nymph.
Great start to the year. Looking forward to some warmer weather and fishing dries, one of these days.
John
Who says Montana winters suck ???
Way to go John.
That would not be me, Rich. At least not this year.
John
That’s a great winter there. Any skwalas out and about on the rivers up there yet, or still a bit early? I got into the first decent skwala action I have had in two years here today. What a fun hatch when you actually hit it right.