The Montana Fishing Company Fly Fishing Report From The Simms Ice Out Event In Bozeman
By Scott Anderson

Posted: April 20, 2012


The Montana Fly Fishing Company is fishing in Bozeman, MT, this week, for the Simms Ice Out Event. It’s an event for guides and outfitters.  A great place to meet and share stories with others in the industry. I was out on the famous Madison River, last night, wade fishing. We pulled in a good size brown trout. Montana Fishing Company Guide Zac Sexton is in the photo above after he rangled the big lunker.

The BITTERROOT RIVER located South of Missoula, Montana is fishing on the rise at 1150 CFS. You should give this one a few days and let the water stabilize.

The BLACKFOOT RIVER located East of Missoula, Montana is in the pre run off stages.

The CLARK FORK RIVER located East of Missoula, Montana is starting rise and looks like it is in the pre run off stages. Perhaps the Missoula area is not the place to fish this week.

The MISSOURI RIVER has lots of snow and very cold temperatures. It is Spring in MONTANA! Reports have been good for midge activity on the top water. Maybe in a few days the weather will break and the fishing temperatures will be tolerable once again. The wind has been a huge factor on the MO, which is located in Craig, Montana.

The YELLOWSTONE RIVER located East of Bozeman, Montana is a bit off color, which is good for streamer fishing for huge brown trout. This is one of my favorite times of the year to fly fish with streamers. The trout can not really see what they are eating, but they have to feed. In my opinion the biggest fish are caught during pre run off and post run off. So get the steamer box out and hit the river, you never know what you are going to hook in to!

GALLATIN RIVER Zac Sexton who guides for Montana Fly Fishing Company has been on the Gallatin every day after work fly fishing. The Gallatin River is located just west of Bozeman, Montana.  Zac reports that the river is slightly higher, but still fishable. Stone fly nymphs size 8 to 10 and soft hackles such as brown hares ears and partridges and orange.

The MADISON RIVER located just west of Bozeman, Montana is fishing ok with the off color water. I fished the Madison today and did ok with a few good size brown. We did see a few rising fish. Patterns that worked for us today were streamers olive, brown and yellow, and black IE SCULPZILLA, JJ SPECIAL, and Black wooly bugger.

The THOMPSON RIVER is on the rise and should produce salmon flies in the coming weeks.

BULL RIVER SAME AS THE THOMPSON RIVER….

It is Pike time on NOXON. As you well know, the Captain was on the the lower Flat Head and got a nice pike last week. Noxon will just get better with time. Even though the river is a bit off color the pike are active and feeding at this time.

Don’t forget to check out our website and book a trip on MontanaFishingCompany.com

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