Category: Missouri River

The name of the game for this short fishing report is “Big Fish, BIG Fish, AND MORE BIG FISH!!” Since pictures really do tell the tale, not much is needed to be said for Dan, Tim and Brian’s trip to the Missouri River, which turned out to be just INSANE! Dan put them on the fish and they continuously had rods bent for three days straight. Caddis, PMD’s and Psuedos were what got it done. Tim was able to land this MONSTER seven pound brown right along the banks. Just take a look at some of these pictures.

Dan Delekta took Tim and Brian over to the Missouri River on a fishing and golf excursion. They brought back some stories of hot weather, fun fishing and long drives. Funny that no one mentioned putting. They had to work for ‘em over there because the weather was nothing short of scorching. They had steady action on those tiny Psuedocleons, PMDs and some Caddis.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               –Parker

As part of their annual adventure Dan, Tim and Brian went to the Missouri for a few days. There were PMD’s, and Caddis, and two nights of fishing the Brown Drakes until 11:00 PM at night. During the mornings they fished mostly dries and some PMD nymphs.

Dan and Nancy

The Big Mo has been giving it up all season! It has been no different for Tim, his brother, Brian and for me. We had excellent fishing on small flies. PMD nymphs, PMD dries, and the Caddis dries rocked it for us the whole time. We had three days of Mo fun over the 4^th. Enjoy the pictures! Fish on!!!

Big Dan

I had the pleasure of guiding Tim and Brian on the Mo. The river was on fire with Caddis, PMD’s, and the last day we caught some nice fish on Brown Drakes. Nancy was lucky enough to fish July 5th with us and landed a 21" Rainbow on a #16 Delektable Royal Teaser. Other flies that rocked included the Delektable CDC Elk Hair Caddis in Purple and Cinnamon and Dan’s New Delektable Halos specifically for the Mo. An assortment of other patterns worked dry and wet. Fun was had by all. Brian had some incredible new experiences landing nice fish on dries.

Dan

I want to start off this report by telling a story about the “Wall” we have at our house. My Dad and I have been very fortunate over the years to catch some big fish and fill our tags with some beautiful animals. Over time my Mother started putting our pictures up on the wall that runs along the stairs. A couple years ago she realized that she did not have any pictures up there, and she was determined to make the “wall”. She is new to fishing and has caught many fish but none have been worthy of the wall, well at least she didn’t think they were worthy. It wasn’t until this year that she decided she was going to fish hard with the guys; we woke her up at 5 O’clock one morning to take a drive up to the Missouri. The fishing has been incredible in previous days and I knew this would be her chance to make the wall, the dreams of catching a big fish were the saving grace for getting her up that morning. The weather changed and began to warm up significantly which made the fishing more difficult than in previous days. Fortunately we still were able to catch some fish and about mid day fishing deep my Mom hooked up on a beautiful Rainbow; this fish gave us quite an air show running and taking line jumping on opposite sides of the boat. I don’t know who made more noise the fish or my Mom screaming. She was ECSTATIC seeing her face while holding that fish was priceless; everybody on that stretch of the river new she caught a fish and that she made the “wall” because she was screaming it. I made the wall!!!

That day we floated from Holter dam down to Craig. We were fishing Micro Mays, Green Machines and size 20 Copper johns. We also had some luck on Size 8 20 inchers. The depth we were fishing changed but it was in between 4-8 feet depending on where we were fishing with a tippet size of 2x,and 3x Fluorocarbon. When using the 20 Incher as your first fly we did not find any need to add split shot, But if you were to fish double nymph rigs with the smaller flies you needed to add split shot to get the fly down there one BB would suffice, but it is all personal preference. When fishing these double nymph rigs it is important to tie the second nymph on the eyelet rather than the bend of the hook, you will notice an increase of takes and more fish on the “wall”. The important thing was to take your time and fish all the ledges seems and buckets.

Craig

Being on the "Mo" for three days brought back great memories. Nancy and I got to fish one day with Dave Bloom, too much fun; spot dry fly fishing to large visible and invisible browns and rainbows. I had great conversations with Dave about fly patterns, guiding, and solving the world’s problems. It was great to get away and play.

Dan

We just completed the annual July tour with Dan Delekta and the Tim Miller group. One of my personal favorites and most challenging guide weeks of the year is with Tim Miller and his friends and family in July. This year’s trip started on the Madison, the next two days were on the Missouri below Holter Dam, the next day was on the Jefferson River, then on to the Big Hole River for a day, the Beaverhead River for a day with the last day on the Madison River. I refer to this as the "Whirlwind Tour"; I love to be able to go to a variety of different rivers and be successful on each system and catch fish. This requires a lot of different fly patterns, leaders, and techniques. This is a unique challenge of rowing, driving, stamina, and focus; testing all of the senses. This year Tim brought his brother Brian who was injured in a motorcycle accident with his knee, thigh, and ankle all messed up. Brian couldn’t wade but was fishing start to finish out of the boat. We caught fish on all the different rivers; punctuated by a 60 to 70 fish dry fly day on the Big Hole and an incredible last day on the Madison with nymphs and dries.

This season has seen the third year of a good snow pack in a row; a near record rainfall in June on all the rivers of S.W. Montana. The perfect storm creating the maximum number of fish on all of our rivers and red hot catching opportunities all summer long until winter sets in. With all the rivers having great water levels; the fishing pressure should be evenly distributed throughout S.W. Montana. The Hopper, Spruce Moth, PMD’s and Caddis flies will all be overlapping with in the last week of July; the Perfect Dry Fly Storm.