Young Dan and I were fortunate enough to get the same day off from working in the shop. We have been watching the river and listening to others reports and decided that floating the upper river in part of the wade section would be a good bet. We floated from Pine butte down to Windy Point. The day started off a little slow, the river rose a foot and the water was green with about a foot of visibility. We missed a couple fish right away using the Delektable Olive Hurless flashback with a Caddis emerger following it. We used 10 foot leaders adding weight as needed. The water color looked great with a little murk until we hit the West Fork. Mud was dumping out of there. So, this is where we got the famous San Juan worm out:)

Later on in the float we ran into a spot where muddy water was coming in on both sides, Dan suggested we fish it and see what happens. It wasn’t ten minutes before we had a double on. Both of the fish took the worm right on the seam; a few more fish were taken out of this spot before we moved on. The rest of the day went the same way, Muddy water and some fish throughout. We spent the day Nymphing using long leaders and a lot of weight. We would start off with one B and keeping adding some as needed. Dan put a Delektable Olive Hurless Flashback size #8 on with a very pink size #8 San Juan (with a hotbead) as the dropper. They loved the worms and one trout even had worms pouring out of his mouth when we pulled him up, straight gorging. Dan kept the pink worm on and kept changing out the stonefly patterns. We did really well with the combo. We went thru all the juicy Skwalla patterns we had, but they just seemed to only want the worm that day.

Craig and Dan

May 30, 2012

Two Expert Guides/Outfitter and a new Shuttle Guy…

We floated Raynolds Pass to Pine Butte. You can get out of the boat and wade fish, no fishing from a boat. Dan on the oars the first part of the trip, Marty getting in shape for summer guiding finishing up. Dan is a ballerina handling Nancy’s drift boat. You need to be an expert oarsman on the upper part of the Madison.

Excellent fishing with conditions ideal. Overcast with no wind or rain. Big stones mostly, Delektable Hurless and sometimes Delektable Lil’ Spankers. The bottom not to difficult to wade, but the river is fast. Dan and Marty might dispute, but the new guy Rog had the big Brown of the day. All had great fish, Bows and Browns mostly in the 16-18 inch range. Elk, antelope, eagles, osprey, and of course plenty of fish, all in an excellent day of wade fishing.

Roger

As you can see by the pictures of the Lodge, it has been a bit on the chilly side for fishing.

However, if you don’t mind a little snow and cold, you’ll find that it is still great fishing. I went down to the river after work today around 5:30 and fished until 8:30, and was quite satisfied with my decision to tuff it out! Tore it up… Period! 22 fish landed in that time, 6 or 7 of which were rainbows, one big whitie, and the rest were browns. It seems to me that the snow coming down just turns the fish on. And boy, was it on! I was using a Delektable Olive Hurless Stone size 8, no flashback; and my dropper was a size 14 Delektable Pheasant Tail Lil’ Spanker. The first fish was on the second cast, and it kinda went like that the rest of the evening 🙂

I didn’t use any weight (wading the edge and fishing a little shallower water, I didn’t feel any need to put any on) and had my dropper about 25 inches below my top fly. I worked the edge upstream little by little and did very well that way. Working from the edge and fanning out with my casting pattern just kinda creapin’ up the river slowly working the pockets and holes. The water color is getting clearer; I would say 2 to 3 feet of visibility right now (above Cameron, MT). It was a little windy at times but not too bad. Taking breaks warming my fingers up in my neck and breaking ice off guides, my father would say “‘builds character”. It was way cold, but I was catching fish.

Anyway, I had no reason to change flies, because what I had tied on was just working too good (and it was too cold to). I also threw a streamer for about 10 minutes before I got back to the truck, but no luck there. Streamers I’m sure were probably a great choice in the snowy weather, but my fingers and brain were too cold, so I went home. Overall, it was a beautiful snowy evening and I went home very satisfied. Happy fishing!!!

Dan

After my first week working in the shop I was given an afternoon off, so naturally I decided to go out and fish. A couple buddies of mine from Bozeman met me up at the shop and we decided to float Lyons to Palisades. The weather was changing every minute from sunny to cloudy and some rain in the mix. During this day we never saw another boat on the river.

We started off fishing streamers, the Delektable Double screamer and the Flash fry worked really well. The fish seemed to like the darker flies with some to a lot of flash. The straight retrieve worked but when you added some variations into the retrieve such as twitching or jigging, the strike was almost instantaneous. Once we realized the streamer bite was on we started throwing double streamer rigs which turned out to be deadly. This allowed the rear fly to be fished deeper so we were able to fish multiple depths in one retrieve. Right now the water color is an off green with a foot to a foot and half of visibility which really allowed us to get close to the bank and all of the pockets behind boulders.

Craig

May 22, 2012 continued

I was able to get out and wade some of the Madison below Varney this afternoon for a few hours and was not dissappointed at all be the results of just sneaking along the edge of the river and high stickin the pockets and seams. The water vis is about 1.5 to 2 feet now and is just a killer grey/green color. I started out with the Delektable Hurless Olive Flashback size 8 with a neon green caddis emerger trailing it. That did very well and produced some 10-15 inch fish, both brown and rainbows. I fished caddis emergers and pupas as my dropper for a while, switching out between different caddis patterns, but eventually I gave in and tied on other Delektable stones as a dropper because they were doing so well…and proceeded to crush it 🙂 Don’t let the color of the water deter you, the fish are hungry and very active. I pulled around 20 in a few hours with no regrets of going out. No real monsters, but a fish on the line is still a fish on the line! And of course I lost that "big one" and had some choice words for that particular moment 🙂 I did land one brown trout that went about 18 inches. There are not a ton of people out right now. I didn’t see a single boat pass me below Varney Bridge during the couple to 3 hours Bill (my 7 week old red heeler) and I were out there. And there was a beautiful sunset to capitalize on the day! Happy Fishing!

Dan, the new Dan in the shop

Pictures coming next time

Beartooth Flyfishing invites everyone to a special fund raising week end, May 19th and 20th, for the Montana Hope Project in memory of Grandpa John Delekta. The Montana Hope Projectis a non-profit organization whose goal is to make dreams come true for critically ill children of Montana. See more information at their web site www.montanahope.org. Representatives from the Montana Hope Project will be at the event.

The third Saturday of May marks the opening of the 2012 fishing season on the Upper Madison from Earthquake Lake to McAtee Bridge. Grandpa loved to fish the opener with Dan, friends, and family.

Beartooth Flyfishing will be offering fly casting clinics and fly tying all weekend. Food will be prepared Saturday and Sunday for a fee from noon to 7:00 PM. Captain Marty will be cooking his famous gumbo, Michael Gerhart will be preparing steak tips and salad, Elle of Elle’s Belles will be preparing potato salad and desserts, and Vicky Noack of Ennis will also prepare desserts. All proceeds from food sales will be donated to the Montana Hope Project. Beartooth Flyfishing will donate 10% of all retail product sales (except fishing licenses) sold over the weekend of May 19th and 20th, from the fly shop, their internet shopping cart www.beartoothflyfishing.com, and phoned-in product sales 406-682-7525.

The hope is to achieve fulfilling one of these children’s dreams from this event. Dan and Nancy Delekta are committed to making this fundraiser for the Montana Hope Project an annual event in loving memory of their father Grandpa John Delekta.

If you are unable to attend and you would like to make a contribution, you can do so through Beartooth Flyfishing or directly to the Montana Hope Project. Keep in mind the goal is to fulfill at least one of these children’s dreams which can cost around $6,000. Please refer to: in memory of John Delekta on donations sent directly so they can tally all the proceeds in honor of Grandpa. Donations can be forwarded on your behalf.

Checks can be written to: The Montana Hope Project

In memory of John Delekta

and mailed to: The Montana Hope Project

PO Box 5927

Helena, MT 59604

Dan took the Delektable family on a scenic fun float which shows the river color well. The family had a great time. The water was a bit off color from Raynolds to Pine Butte and a bit high. Wade cautiously…

Our neighbors were out fishing and provided a couple of nice fish pictures from the week.

Nancy