We are leaving the latter part of June for Montana. We have always fished the southwest region, but would like to fish a different area. I was thinking maybe central Montana, but not sure if this is a good idea. Wondering if anyone of you folks might have some advice for this years trip. Been as far north as Glacier and south to the park but not much further east. Thanks Fish
On my, can’t spell, it’s farther east.
Watch the run-off as we have had a lot of weather and the rivers may still be high and muddy. If so be prepaird to fish tail waters and lakes or spring creeks. It looks as of now that we are still going to have high water at the end of this month but you never can say for sure. Supposed to get into the 80’s by weeks end buy they have said that before. In a noramal year I would never book anyone on the Yellowstone before the 12 of July but we haven’t had a normal year in some time. Just a heads up. Ron
HI
Like Ron said we are getting a lot of rain at the present time. One popular spot is the Missouri River below Holter Dam. There are some access sites. From Holter to the mouth of *****ly Pear Creek should be clear even if the rains do keep coming. Wolf Creek would be the access from the Interstate and is about 40 miles from Helena.
Dean
“A legend in my own mind”
Thanks, We’ve fished Holter Dam before. I hope to go there this trip also. We just got a new drift boat and would like to take my wife on the water below the dam and drift the waters by the campground. What is a good water flow for this? I want to be able to row back and forth so she can have a easy fish. It’s pretty deep in that spot so I might try a sinking tip. I have a electric motor for our boat, would that be usful in this situation? Thanks fish
When we lived in Montana we used to figure the crest on the Yellowstone would be about the 4th of July - or whenever the wild roses bloomed on its banks. You didn’t mention the Big Horn, a call to our Sponsor down there,
The Big Horn Trout Shop, would give you a report for there - or if the Yellowstone is down, you might try east of Livingston instead of the normal runs pulling out close to town. As I recall Al and Gretchen Beatty had some favorites between Livingston and Big Timber.
LadyFisher, Publisher of
FAOL
LF- If you only knew the number of people on those eastern sections of river it woould amaze you. Seems we have a Bozeman fleet coming over the pass each and every morning. Plus all the people that have moved here on top of them. Not like it use to be at all.
One other point for people wanting to float the Yellowstone for the first time. There are sections that new drift boat people should stay out of. It changes from year to year on the Ywllowstone because it is a true freestone river and the good Lord is the one that does it. So get advice before heading out for any section of river that you have not floted before. Things can change big time on this river from year to year. We have lost two this year so far and do not need to lose anymore.
I would suggest contacting Dan Bailey’s or the Hatch Finders before floating any section of the Yellowstone before going. Just to make sure that all is well on that section and no surprises await you. 
Ron
HI
I haven’t seen any drift boats with electric motors on that stretch of the Missouri. I think that the current would be a little strong for an electric. it would also depend on how much water is being released. It has rained all day here today.
Dean
“A legend in my own mind”
Don’t miss the Bighorn! Rained some all 4 days. Fish being wet and all they didn’t mind a bit. Flows are up so there were some floating weeds but the fishing and catching were fantastic. RC OOPS! that was supposed to be a thumbs UP!
[This message has been edited by crook33 (edited 13 June 2005).]
I saw some dumba$$ over on the Missouri last week with a trolling motor. It appearead that he could only go up the kind of water that would be easy to row up. I saw him attempting to motor up a deeper riffle and it wasn’t working so well. Maybe you’ve got one of those 100 pound thrusts or something? Things are coming in to shape right now. Rivers are mostly dropping and I am going fishing today. Missouri is clear as of last week including the Dearborn and *****ley Pear. I would say that in a week if we don’t get torrnetial downpour just about everything mentioned will fish well to spectacular.
I can’t agree with you on that one my friend. We still have a lot of snow in the mountains to come out yet and it is going to get warm the rest of this week. They are calling for 80’s and I bet the rivers will come back up and be that way for a bit yet. We had a lot of rain the past two weeks and it was all snow in the high up. All the mountains around us have snow down to about 8,000 feet or so and there is a bunch of it yet to come out.
I am going out for a bit and I will take my camera and take a shot of the Yellowstone and post it later tonight. Then you can see what is going on. Keep an eye on this site and it will keep you up to date on the rivers out here. Just click on the map on the dot were the river you want to check is. Ron
[url=http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mt/nwis/rt:81093]http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mt/nwis/rt[/url:81093]
Figured I would throw my two cents into the mix. I spent this weekend (and the past two including Memorial Day weekend) playing around fishing in the Beartooths outside of Cooke City. As of this morning the snowtel site at Fisher Creek near Cooke City was at 99 % of normal. This is a huge jump from about 70% Memorial Day weekend. Most snowtel site readings now should be taken with a huge grain of salt since the normal readings are fairly low, anysite with a normal reading of less than 5 inches of moisture I ignore, the ones I really pay attention to are those with a normal reading of 15 or above.
I made the comment to my dad two weeks ago that if we didnt get some moisture fast, it was going to be a bad summer as far as fires and flow rates. The ground was fairly “dry” then and there was not a lot of snow where I was fishing. Where I was fishing is at 8000’ and there was little new snow on the ground when I was there this weekend but it was starting to snow as I left the trailhead for home. So things are looking up somewhat for SW MT. Still going to be after July 4th before I will be able to get into some of the higher lakes since they are still solidly frozen and there is a lot of new snow bove 9000’ and especially above 10000’.
If the weather warms up, the snowpack will start to melt fairly quickly so things can change, but I suspect with all of the snow and rain fairly high up, the rivers should be fairly good this summer.
Please note my experiences and comments are primarily for the Yellowstone, Madison, and Gallatin drainages. I have seen some very very ugly numbers for parts of NW MT, in particular the Kootenai drainage. Dont know how much rain that area got, but as far as snow and winter precip, it was pretty ugly.
Probably late in posting this but here is the snowtel site for MT. ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/snow/update/mt.txt
Pardon my rambling on…lol
As an afterthought, the Cooke City are supposedly got a foot of snow last Tuesday, but despite the cool weather of the past week, almost all of it was gone by late Friday so a foot of snow can really disappear fast.
Take care everyone and cya around. Mark
I should have qualified my statement better because I have not been on the Yellowstone and I really don’t know what it’s like over there right now. I can say that the Missouri is now and will be fine. All of the rivers in my area are looking good, except the Clark Fork which is off color but dropping and clearing. I did well on Rock Creek today mostly small fish mostly on golden stone dries. It is my opinion that in this area that I am in that there is not enough snow left to blow things out beyond fishability. Snow+rain is a different story.
I tried to post two pictures but for some reason I can’t get them on here? I will try agian later. Ron
I’m with a few of the other guys. Some of the rivers are likely to rise this week. The temps are finally going up and we are out of the rain pattern a bit.
The Bighorn flows are up to over 4000 cfs right now and talk is it going up to nearly 10,000 cfs if the snow does come off as expected. Great news for the Horn. Flush out all the sediment and help return some of the big hatches.
Some additional good news for Montana and Idaho. The climate prediction center is showing below average temps and above average precip for the month of July!
[url=http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/30day/:5b00c]http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/30day/[/url:5b00c]
With the recent changes in temps, some of the rivers in south-central Montana are on the rise. The Boulder and Stillwater rivers are showing another peak.
Looks like we finally have some sun. 
The Yellowstone two days ago. At Mayers landing. Running at 9,000 cfs. It is higher now and muddier. Ron
[This message has been edited by RonMT (edited 16 June 2005).]