It Feels a Bit More Like the 30th of September Today

The Hoppers are Waterlogged... Think Sculpins Until the Sun Shines

Updated 8/31/10

Tip of the Month - Attractor Dry Fly Fishing

When I woke up yesterday I could hardly believe that it was the 30th of August, first the summer has gone by way to fast, secondly it was raining and my temperature gauge read 45 degrees at 7:15am... So much for those 90's last week! For those of you who think that summer is completely over, think again, weather forecast has it clearing up by Thursday and back into the 70's possibly 80's so don't despair, it's not over yet. But do realize that this is the wettest, rainiest, coolest summer I have ever seen in my nearly 30 years of living in Bozeman, it's been let's just say different this year.

The Big News is about the dam on the Lower Madison which was crushed by a school bus sized boulder on Monday afternoon - check the story here MADISON DAM

While it may not make you happy that you can't fish hoppers in the rain, quit your whining because the big fish will be munching on meat instead, and you'll get some more hopper fishing in before it's all said and done, believe me they don't switch off of a meal because it get's cool for a day or two. This little reprieve will do nothing more than push some mud down from the Park and dirty things up for a few days and then recharge the rivers - fishing will be better after this trust me.

Take a break from your terrestrials when it's 50 and raining - when the sun shines again and things warm up remember - it's late summer now in Montana and that means it's time to be fishing your terrestrials. If you can't find hoppers on a river near you, you're not looking hard enough... The Yellowstone has been possibly the most consistent river in the state this summer for dry fly fishing, now it's finally hopper time (or has been for the last 2 or 3 weeks if you know what you're doing) and so be looking riverwide for the hopper bite (hint hint don't just bang the banks you rookies...)

September in Montana will likely be as good as we've ever seen it with pretty much a mild summer with good water levels, good fish numbers coming off of two good years of water in '08 and '09 so here we go, summer's not over by a long shot and that means you should definitely still be bringing your terrestrials for at least the next 3 or 4 weeks depending on what mother nature offers us for weather. Speaking of, the early early morning fishing has been tough - fish are waiting till the afternoons to start eating as the mornings have been extremely cold. 

With the recent rains the Yellowstone, its tribs and the Gallatin and its tribs along with the East Gallatin are going to dirty up temporarily. But keep in mind that if you have a big rainshower roll through that dumps for an hour or two, expect that the Gallatin will take 24hrs or so to clear. The Yellowstone however can be a different story, you have to watch the spikes on the Lamar, Soda Butte Creek, and the Gardner river and those will usually tell you how sever and how dirty the plug of mud coming down is going to be.

PMD's are done, so are Yellow Sallies, it's terrestrial time, we're still seeing some midnight stones on the water, fish are still eating chubbies, but the bulk of things is definitely Hoppers and terrestrials now. The infamous "Spruce Moth hatch" has been on most of the rivers with a lot of pine trees around them (that's because they are burrowing out with the warmer dry weather now). They are all over the Gallatin and Upper Madison as well as any place where the fir trees are dying.

The Upper Madison has begun to fish well, had some buddies up there the last few days, Ross was fishing big Rainy's Grand Hoppers in a size 6 and 8 and pegging fish on those and some smaller hopper action as well. So it's finally time to venture on up to the Upper for the terrestrial season. When the sun breaks out again go back to what was working before Mother Nature dumped on us.

If you have been planning a small stream jaunt, now is probably the time to get on the ball - as you get into mid to late September the water temps start to stay too cold to have much good fishing except in the middle of the day. Small stream fishing around the Gallatin Valley and surrounding areas has been excellent this summer, with lots of water and cool temps throughout much of August most of the small feeder streams are still in great shape with good fishing and active fish on the surface. Attractor dry flies are still the go to on many of the smaller streams and also some of the smaller rivers as well.

Ross went over and fished the Beaverhead and said that the streamer fishing and crane fly skating was ridiculous and that it was well worth the drive over. So if you want to get out of Bozeman, that's not a bad idea, just don't expect to have it to yourself - the Upper Ruby has been off the charts good with hoppers and attractor dries - they might not be big, but they're a helluva lot of fun. Big Hole is too low to get a drift boat down, but you can still pull some rubber around if you want to - fishing has been decent over there on spruce moths too - expect with rainy and cool weather for Spruce Moths to be done for now, who knows if we'll get more in September or not, have to wait and see.

If you are looking for some challenging fishing, this is the time of year for it on places like the Missouri or at the MZ Ranch with some tricos… The black curse as I like to call it, this can provide some great dry fly fishing for the angler who can deal with tiny flies, delicate presentation and longer finer leaders – if that’s your gig, then give it a go, if it isn’t, well then perhaps you’ll not want to go chasing that. The Bighorn has been a bit hit or miss from all the reports we’ve heard, that being said there’s still black caddis around, and they’ll eat hoppers on windy days...

The good news for you guys is that we've been busy on our social media stuff (now time for me to fish right?) Check out the Blog newly updated and well appointed now, we're on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, you can check out all of our Newsletters Online, the list is exhausting, but you can check out all of this stuff for contest info, upcoming events, fly tying patterns, material reviews, gear reviews, fishing tips and more.

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NEW Tip of the Month: Attractor Dry Fly Fishing

An updated version of one of our favorite Tips of the Month – A very common question I hear from people is what are attractor dry flies? Why do they work? Where do you use them and when? What patterns and what size etc, etc.... So here is the skinny on attractor dries, or at least as far as I know it (updated for 2010, because we’re all always learning too)...

When summer hits and the water warms up and the bug activity picks up, there’s a mass of bugs for the fish to eat, from Caddis to Yellow Sallies, to bigger Goldenstones to Drakes to mayflies and terrestrials, and that leaves the question, what do I use and when? Well enter attractor dry flies, they fit the bill for a lot of these and instead of looking exactly like one particular food source, they look an awful lot like a bunch of them, which can be really good at times. Attractor dry fly patterns are simply patterns that look somewhat similar to a lot of things that could be on the water, but never really like anything specifically that is hatching, otherwise it wouldn't be an attractor it would be a caddis or mayfly imitation. Over the years attractor dries have taken many different forms, shapes, sizes, colors and even fished wet instead of dry like a sunken Turk's or a wet version of the Royal Trude.

So to put all attractors into one category and sum them with a couple of sentences would be pretty difficult, if not down right impossible. But you can certainly break them up into sizes, and that’s really the important part with fishing any of these attractor patterns is finding the size, not necessarily a pattern. Look for upwings versus down wings, parachutes versus foam and double wings etc – that will help you if you’re looking at a lot of stones, versus a lot of mayflies, etc. A few of my all time favorites include the Royal Wulff, the Hare's Ear Trude, Rubberleg Stimulators in any color and size, and of course the PMX – and there’s a ton more new one’s every year and my new favorites are the Chubby Chernobyl’s and the Yeager Bomb’s – both great summertime patterns.

When I think of attractor dry flies, I always kind of wonder to myself, "Why would any self respecting fish eat this piece of ...? It doesn't look like anything, or does it look like everything if you removed a few parts...?" So the question is, why do they work? The answer: because they do... That would suffice for me, but oftentimes as fishermen we want a better explanation, because we want to understand an animal with a brain the size of a pea! The ultimate answer lies in the fact that many times during the time when attractor dries begin to work there is a lot of hatch activity on the rivers and water temperatures are traditionally at optimal levels and the rivers are beginning to clear. In other words, they work because the fish are looking up at the surface, they are trained that there are mayflies, caddis and stoneflies of sorts on the water and the bug looks eerily similar from beneath the surface to nearly all of these food sources. The other reason is peacock hurl and the colors (nearly all attractors have a bright color or some peacock hurl in them) and peacock hurl's magic is best left for another tip of the week...

So where do you use them and when? I use attractor dries on nearly all the rivers and some of the smaller creeks, but usually not on spring creeks or areas with abundant insect life where the fish can be picky - ie tailwaters... So the Upper Madison, Yellowstone, Gallatin, Boulder, Big Hole, Hyalite Creek, etc. I love to fish attractors on small streams where the fish have a small window of feeding opportunity during the warm summer months, there is nothing quite like smacking a bunch of cutthroats and rainbows on a size 12 or 14 Royal Wulff on a creek you could reach across. The when is a bit different on different rivers, but almost always falls perfectly into the summertime when water temperatures start to warm into the mid to upper 50's and 60's and bug activity increases. So without giving you an exact date, I can pretty certainly say that things are going full throttle by around mid July, if not a bit early on warmer years.

Patterns and sizes are going to depend on where you go and a lot of it is personal preference, because remember, these aren't patterns that are representing anything the trout really see on the water, they are more to get the fish interested and hopefully elicit a strike. As I started to list off a few of my favorites above, but there simply isn't enough space and time to list all of the different iterations that are out there these days. Patterns come and go, become popular, die off, but don't fret, the originals like the Wulff and Trude have been around forever, but honestly there are some better patterns out there now in my opinion. We’ve got a few of them listed on our Blog this month – check it out here Hot Fly Patterns for the Summer.

Part of the fun of attractor fishing is using something you haven’t used a bunch before and trust me when I say that fish in Gallatin Canyon have seen a few Royal Wulffs in their day. So I tie some of my own patterns, and always check out the latest and newest attractor patterns, simply because they are almost always pretty fun patterns with lots of wild colors and rubberlegs and wings. Size wise, although you aren't trying to match an insect, it does help to have a general size of insects that might be coming off - for example - don't fish a size 6 stimulator if there are only pmd's and caddis in 14's, 16's and 18's coming off, that just is ridiculous and probably won't work so well. Now when it comes to cutthroat, all bets are off and you can generally try out your new patterns with some great success, the stereotype of cutties being "below average intelligence" are pretty much true when you present them with flashy rubberlegged bugs fluttering on the surface...

So if you ever want to have a philosophical debate on why they work, what patterns to use, or just pass along some stories, stop by and I'd be more than willing to share a few of my own.

Fly of the Week (or two or three): "The Peep Show"
 It is now nearly September, so although it's not fall yet, fall is right around the corner, until then, I'm fishing some more terrestrials, and one of my go to patterns off the back of a big hopper is an ant pattern. Years ago I was told by an old timer named Rocky Miller about the magic of an ant pattern fished drowned off the back of a grasshopper. I thought Rocky was pulling my leg that day that he and my dad and I were fishing together, but as he continued to catch fish in places that I'd fished with my hopper I began to realize he wasn't as full of BS as I thought he was. That day I became a believer and I've had countless fish since then fall to a drowned ant off the back of a grasshopper and this is my favorite ant pattern. It's got an epoxy body, two toned body with black and red, little rubberlegs that twitch in the water, and it sinks more than it floats... Perfect!




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