Most Montana fly anglers spend August obsessing over low, clear rivers and picky trout. Fair enough. But while everyone’s stress-casting size 20 tricos at sipping rainbows, there’s another game happening on the state’s warmwater flats — and it involves a fish that will absolutely destroy a fly without hesitation. The crew at The Reel 406 leaned into that reality hard with their latest episode, Small Fries: Northern Pike on the Fly, and the result is exactly the kind of fishing content that makes you set an alarm for 5 a.m.
Northern pike don’t get nearly enough respect from the fly fishing community in Montana, and that’s honestly a shame — and also convenient for those of us who know better. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks classifies pike as a Category 2 invasive species in many drainages west of the Divide, where they’ve hammered native bull trout and westslope cutthroat populations. In those waters, there is no size or bag limit — FWP actively encourages anglers to remove as many as possible. In reservoirs like Noxon Rapids and Cabinet Gorge, pike fishing pressure stays surprisingly light despite the generous regulations, which means the fish are there and they’re catchable. East of the Divide, the Missouri River system and Fort Peck Reservoir hold legitimate pike fisheries under standard regulations, where a 10-fish daily and possession limit applies with no size limit — worth double-checking current regs at fwp.mt.gov before you go.
What makes the early morning timing in this video more than just aesthetic is the biology. Pike are ambush predators that hold in shallow, weedy structure — exactly the water that heats up fast once the sun hits it. Get out there in that first hour of calm, low-light conditions and you’re presenting flies to fish that are actively positioned and aggressive, not lethargic and deep. A large, articulated streamer — think a six-inch bunny or baitfish pattern on a stout 9- or 10-weight — is the right tool, and a short, heavy fluorocarbon or wire bite tippet is non-negotiable unless you enjoy the feeling of getting cut off. The Reel 406 team clearly knows this drill, and watching them work the flat calm surface early in the morning is a good reminder that sometimes the best trout fishing in August is the pike fishing you weren’t thinking about.
If you’ve never thrown a fly at northern pike, let this video serve as your nudge. The strikes are violent, the fish are willing, and in many Montana waters you’re doing conservation work every time you land one. That’s a hard combination to argue with.
Editor’s note: Corrected the east-of-Divide pike regulation to the actual 10-fish daily/possession limit with no size limit, and removed Lake Elmo (an Eastern District water) from the list of west-of-Divide no-limit reservoirs.
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