Montana

This blog has been looking pretty stale from the lack of updates, and there is no better way to give it a fresh look than to post some pictures from my recent trip to Montana!

Sunset over the Missouri River.

We planned our trip for 9 days, splitting our time between the Missouri, Gallatin, and Madison Rivers. We caught the Missouri just right, nailing fish on dries, droppers, and nymphing. We took a lot of fish form the Might Mo once we figured them out and had a blast playing with the cookie cutter 16-18'' Rainbows.

The biggest fish of the trip - a 22'' Missouri River Rainbow taken on a PMD emerger.

The Madison was a blast, but we were only able to fish it for one day. We found some Salmon flies around the upper stretches and were able to get some fish to play on top, and nymphing some big ugly nymphs produced fish as well.

Yum!

The Madison gave up a good number of fish for one day of fishing, with the best being an 18'' Rainbow. Even though these huge Salmon flies were abundant, swinging caddis pupa was by far the most effective method of catching fish.

Between the Lakes on the Madison River.

The Gallatin was gorgeous and I recommend fishing there. The fish weren't huge, but there were enough to keep you occupied and the scenery was beautiful. The best fish was a 17'' Rainbow that jumped about 5 or 6 times before I brought it to the net.

17'' of Gallatin River Rainbow.

Overall, the trip was a great success. I wish that I was still out there! The fishing was awesome and right on cue, the Montana folk were extremely nice.

Keep checking back....some big changes coming soon!

Tight Lines,
Artie