Bozeman/Butte Recreation Report Bob Ward's Sports and Outdoors

Bozeman/Butte Recreation Report by Bob Ward’s Sports and Outdoors (3.27.15)
By angelamontana

Posted: March 27, 2015

Hunting:

Spring Turkey starts on April 11th. The Spring Bear season begins April 15th. Bob Ward’s has a red tag gun liquidation sale on now. Save up to $1,000 on select items!

Bozeman Fishing:

Gallatin River: The whole river from the valley up in to the Canyon is fishing very well. Fish seem to be eating stone fly imitations with a midge dropper. Copper John’s and Brassie’s seem to work well on the Gallatin. With the warm weather coming up, the river will get a bit off color. Worms and spinners will be a good bet, when that happens.

Madison River: The rainbows are moving to their spawning areas and feeding heavily as they do. Browns and other fish will be keying on the eggs coming down stream. Crayfish and Sculpins are also getting active, so don’t hesitate to throw those imitations. Watch for the closures on the upper part of the river.

Yellowstone River: The rainbow spawn is kicking in here as well. Egg patterns and spawn sacks are working well here. The browns are active and eating big buggers, if you enjoy tossing big bugs!

Jefferson River: This river should be a good bet for some big fish on streamers. It won’t be long before it starts getting dirty, but tossing some streamers should pull some big fish.

Lakes: Most of the areas lakes are thawed, except the high elevation ones. Hebgen and Hyalite still have ice, but it is really unsafe. The lakes that have thawed are fishing very well, as the fish are cruising the shoreline looking for food

Butte Fishing:

Recent warm weather in SW Montana has initiated great fishing conditions. Trout are beginning to move into spawning areas and early warm temperatures have brought early season hatches to bear. Nymph fishing on the Missouri, Big Hole, and Beaverhead Rivers are improving week by week.

Bactis nymphs are typical of early season mayfly hatches and patterns such as Prince Nymphs, Hare’s Ear Nymphs, and Copper Bobs are excellent imitators.

Black Copper Bobs in size 14 or 16 were a great choice last week on the Beaverhead and Clark Fork rivers. Purple Prince put a few nice trout from the Missouri into our creels.

San Juan Worms and Red Power worms have been working well on the Big Hole near Melrose.

Spawn Sacs dyed orange are a great bait choice on the Missouri below Tosten.

The Ruby river was fishing well this past week.

Canyon Ferry is almost free of ice and is beginning to be fished trolling rapalas deep is a recipe for success.

(Report by Ryan Corwin – Bob Ward’s Sports and Outdoors)

New Podcast!

Riley's Meats - Butte Wild Game Processing