MT fishing

Fishing has gotten off to a very slow start in my neck of the woods
in MT. We ve had plenty of water which is a good thing. Lots of snow
pack and the Mo is 6000 CFS below Holter dam with lots more to come!

Winds have been in the 20-30 mph category alot of the time too. The
March midge hatch was abundant yet I didnt see a fish feeding on top
the whole month. Go figure, maybe the high flows???

The funny & puzzling thing is the river has experienced July
conditions as far as fisherman traffic! Last saturday it looked like
the Spanish Armada was departing from the Holter dam boat ramp. The
local eatery , totally unprepared for this assault had sold out of food
by the end of the weekend. The rainbows are out of the river spawning.
There s no hatch, tho the olives are due soon. I hope they caught
some white fish on san juans as that was about all there was to
catch other than an occaisional brown. Seems like an expensive date for
some whitefish at $400 a trip!

I did get out this week to fish for rainbows running out of Holter
lake . They cluster near Hauser dam on the upper Mo. Caught a few
nice fish nymphing but they were more interested in sniffing butts than
seriously feeding. I think most of those fish are stockers and I dont
think they are able to spawn in the river.

Going out with Warren Sunday for a float on the Lower Madison below
3 Forks. By clave time it s too warm to fish there and there s
limited wading access. Weather is supposed to be a bit crummy but
perhaps without RW along it will be just fine!

MT