Friday, April 22, 2011

Terrific April Fishing













Though I'd like to title this entry "spring fishing" or something along those lines, it still feels a bit like winter around these parts. Just this week we've had two significant snowfalls in Bozeman - can't imagine what the mountains received. Haven't checked the stats, all I know is that there is a ton of the white stuff up there. And while we've been dealing with cold temps and lots of snow and a lack of comfort the benefit is good water. We're going to have lots of it this summer which is going to make for ideal conditions from mid July throughout the rest of summer and fall.







In spite of the more March-like conditions, fishing has been terrific. We've had some great baetis and midge fishing on the Yellowstone, Madison and the Spring Creeks and, just this past week, experienced the wonders of skwala fishing on the Big Hole. It was cold, maybe 25, and windy but those fish were on that early season stonefly - kind of like hopper fishing in April. Nymphing, as it most often is, has been solid most everywhere and as water temps warm slowly but surely, the streamer fishing has picked up. So it's hard to figure what we'll do or where we'll be headed from one day to the next - we're lookng at wind, at water temps, air temps, flow trends, clouds, sun and all the rest. With all the options around here, there's always something fishing well - we just have to find it!