It’s always interesting to compare weather, fishing patterns and/or hunting trends over the years, so, in this week’s BEST OF The Captain’s Column, we are showing you what 4th of July week was like back in 2013 when the Captain wrote this article.  A couple of similar things from then to now are 1) the hot weather and 2) the recreational floaters!  Enjoy!

The hot weather leading up to this 4th of July holiday has made some of the recent outstanding fishing fizzle a little, but there is still fish to be caught with milder temperatures in the forecast for the weekend. Rivers and lakes around Western Montana should still be producing the only difference is anglers might want to start early in the morning, take the midday and heat of the afternoon off, and then fish about an hour before sunset. That fishing pattern should be especially true on the local rivers.

The Blackfoot River will be taken over by recreational floaters during the day but some of the other local rivers should give anglers a little more solitude, but they also won’t be void of the floaters having fun tubing down the river. I received this fly-fishing report from local outfitter John Perry from johnperryflyfishing.com, “With this hot weather the fishing has really changed from a week ago. Lower parts of Area Rivers seemed to have slowed with dry flies upper Rock Creek is still good with caddis and small stone fly patterns. The bigger fish on most parts of the Blackfoot seem to have lock jaw. The upper Clark Fork is very warm and full of river salad! Upper Bitterroot is still good with drake patterns and small yellow and golden stone fly patterns. Georgetown Lake is pretty good with various dry flies patterns-if not too windy. Let’s hope for rain and cooler temps”. Georgetown Lake is a good idea and quite a few fly fisherman love to fish the lake in a float tube.

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