Big Fish on Big Flies: End of May Missouri River Update

Art and Warren with a shallow water brown.

Greetings from the Canyon! It’s currently 49 degrees and pouring rain as I write this. Everyone’s been doing their rain dances this spring, and they might be working. We’ve seen an inch and a half over the last 24 hours and have about another inch in the coming days. That is a torrential downpour for us, and a very welcome sight. Some rivers on the Rocky Mountain Front Range got insane thunderstorms and are running really hot: The Sun River hit its highest level since 2020! It is a widespread system, so it should help some of the other rivers in the Southwest of the state, as should the lower temperatures forecasted for the coming week. We had some higher temps last week, but it really has been a very forgiving second half of May, with decent precipitation and lower temps than last year. Keep it coming!

Fishing has been great, PMDs have been going for a couple weeks now. Pale Morning Duns are our larger mayflies of the season and are very important to our bigger fish. They started early this year but should stick around well as our water temps stagnate with this big cold front. PMDs bring the big boys up very shallow, as they follow the bugs onto the shallow riffle bars where they hatch. We’ve seen some very big fish hooked in less than a foot of water, on both shallow nymph rigs and dry flies. This is one of my favorite times of year for the shallow approaches. Hooking a trout over 20 inches anyway is great but doing it in 10 inches of water and watching that fish peel into your backing in the blink of an eye is hard to beat. And it happens on dry flies a lot, which is almost too much fun.

Noah with a Mo’ Bow

I had a day last week where we had prime conditions; low wind, heavy cloud coverage, moderate temps. Textbook dry fly stuff. We nymphed shallower in the morning as we waited for the hatch, knowing it was right around the corner. As soon as I saw the first PMD eat, we went straight to fishing on the surface. This was around 10:00. We were on a classic Missouri flat; 50 yards wide and 150 yards long of gravel potholes and small weed beds with water depths ranging from 3 feet to 8 inches deep. This is the good stuff. On these flats, the fish spread out and find a lane they like, then rise on virtually every PMD dry that hits their lane. The water is shallow, so it’s hard to get close, and your fly is not allowed to drag, but if you lay out the right cast in the right lane, they are eating it. These are honest fish; you just need to get it there. 

We had a pod of a dozen in a deeper slot of the flat below us about 80 feet, half a dozen eating to our right about 50 feet, and about 20 solo fish eating off the bank in a 50 yard span upstream of us. These were the main groups, as well as too many randoms spread across the flat to make a note of. We were anchored fishing to a group of three, and I was watching these different options planning the next move. Like normal in these situations, my head was spinning a bit. Do I row over these 5 fish to hit that big back I saw across the flat? Do we post up on this huge kype jaw I saw stick out on a sip until we fool him? Or do we blind drift down the flat, and try to get lucky with the number of fish up? I sat for a second weighing the options, until I just started laughing to myself. Which of these 100 rising fish do we pick? What a hilarious fly fishing dilemma, if you can even call it that. I decided this was the time to drift down into the fish, which was the right option. We immediately got an eat and brought a great rainbow to the net. We stayed on the flat for about 2 and a half hours repeating the process before we had to push down and cover some water. We fished dries from 10:00 till 4:30 when we took out. Just another day at the office.

Mark with a dry fly eater

Dry fly stuff has been super, when it’s windier the nymphing has also been top tier. Deeper stuff has gotten lots of fish, and the shallower rigs have put some studs into the boat. Streamer bite has also gotten great lately and will continue producing with the inclement weather we have looming. This river is all about choice, and you have the choice to fish a lot of different approaches right now.

Don and Craig catching some rainbows on the Mo’

The lodge has been rocking this season, the way we like it. We just had a big family group this last week, fathers and sons, which was a total blast. Awesome people with the right attitudes. We had one day in the middle of the trip where we had high pressure, bad winds, and the water bumped a bit. Bugs were hard to find; the fish were hanging low and were very lethargic. Just a weird day. Those happen occasionally, can’t always bat a thousand. Some people would groan about it, get negative, and let it affect their next day. These guys were total champs, had a smile all day long, and gave it an honest try the next day. We had completely different conditions the next day, everyone was in an awesome mood, and we thumped the fish hard.  Attitude is 90 percent of this sport. If you stay optimistic and work at it, you’re always rewarded. Complaining and quitting never helps the cause. I think the river can sense positivity. Is that actually true? Probably not. Is it worth trying? Definitely. DAVE RAINBOW

Dave gettin’ it done!

Fly fishing is about controlling as many little, tiny variables as we can to minimize randomness and be successful. Fly size, color, and shape. Leader length, tippet strength, tippet material. Rod length, weight, reel. Dragless drifts, depth of flies, speed of retrieves. We manage all these variables to maximize success on the water, might as well have a positive attitude as well if it could help in any way.

Rollin’ down the river

June starts tomorrow, summer months baby. Consistent hatches, fish finding their rhythm, and lots of dry fly opportunities. I'm ready to toss the bobbers in a drawer permanently. We’ve fed plenty of dry fly eaters lately, but in the summer, you can do it all day long. We have a busy schedule for all of June and a lot of July and August, with a couple open pockets here and there. If you want to make it here this summer, let us know earlier than later. Specific dates are a little tougher to come by for these months, but we can definitely try to make something happen. The fall stuff is coming in as well now, so it’s not a bad time to get your September and October trips on the books. We’ve been having an awesome season and would love for you to be a part of it. We’ll see you when you get here!

Cheers!