After a long dose of snow, rain and all the lasting effects of winter, spring has finally arrived and with the warm weather of the past few days the rivers are on the rise. The Yellowstone is now officially blown out and will likely stay unfishable until early to mid July. As we speak, the Madison is still in good shape and fishing well though that may be short lived unless cooler weather arrives to slow the snow melt. If in fact the Madison turns muddy as well, we'll be looking to spring creeks, the Missouri and some lakes and ponds in the weeks ahead - all great options in theiur own right.
The Mother's Day caddis hatch was phenomenal this year providing some of the best surface activity I've found with the hatch in the past few seasons. Fished a local but private spring creek today that feeds the East Gallatin. Wondering if some fish had moved into the creek to escape the runoff conditions in the larger river, we figured a black bugger thrown right into the confluence of the two might be a good idea. A few minutes later, 25.5" brown lay in the bottom of the net - the biggest I've managed to find in Montana thus far. Now we're looking for the 26 incher!
