Friday, June 11
With Rock Creek running pretty high, I decided to skip past some of the smaller streams in the area to try a spring creek I had read about in a recent editions of Fly Rod and Reel magazine. It was a pay to play creek, but considering the cost was only 50 dollars and I had the run of the place to myself, I figured I had nothing to lose. The name of the place was Krutar Ranch just past Ovando, MT. On the ranch there are two spring creeks and a couple of miles of private access to the North Fork of the Blackfoot River. The place itself was quite scenic and had the weather been a little better (cloudy and overcast, fairly windy, low 50s), I would have enjoyed it there even more than I did. There are a number of spring fed ponds on the grounds as well which you can fish, but I decided to spend my time on the two spring creeks instead. The first one I fished is called Rock Creek, and of the two on the Ranch, this one holds a smaller population of fish as it is not nearly as fertile as the other creek, Kleinschmidt. There were no hatches coming off and there was little sign of insect life underneath the surface except for a few golden stone nymphs I discovered when I did some checking underneath the rocks in the water. Other than that, I saw no other insect life whatsoever. After about an hour of fishing this creek with no success, and without seeing a fish, I decided to try Kleinschmidt creek instead. This creek (like Rock) is quite small (about a 10 ft across in most places), but it held a large population of large green drake nymphs (sz 10-12) as well as good populations of caddis larvae (free living and cased) with some small baetis nymphs in the creek as well. No insects were hatching so I decided to try my luck fishing a dual nymph setup with a small split shot to get the flies down. I pretty much stuck with this setup for most of the day as I never witness anything showing itself on or near the surface. The fishing was not terrific, but I did manage to take a beautifully colored rainbow of about 16" on a swimming hare's ear and two other browns of about 10" on the same pattern. The highlight of the day was sight fishing for a large brown (over 20") and having three last instant refusals by the fish to my fly before it eventually spooked and I never found it again. This was my first experience fishing a spring creek and the challenge of it was fun, even though I did not land very many fish. My only complaint would be the size of the water and after awhile I was ready for some larger water to fish.
That afternoon I decided to try something a bit larger so I went to nearby Monture Creek and tried my hand there for a couple of hours. Much like the spring creeks, no bugs were coming off here except for a few mayflies which I never took the time to identify. The water was very cold (sub 40 degrees). There were fair number of small clinger mayfly nymphs (14-18) and a small number of baetis nymphs (18-20) underneath the rocks in the riffle water sections of the stream. I stuck with nymphing and did manage to take one nice cutthroat of about 16-17" inches on a beatis nymph imitation.
Saturday, June 12
Fished the Little Blackfoot river (upper and lower) most of the day up until about 3:00 in the afternoon. This is a gorgeous little stream that I absolutely fell in love with. The upper section (above Ellingson) is a swift flowing, high gradient stream that seems to be coming down from the mountains. It was a bit difficult to find decent water to fish here, but I did manage to take a brilliantly colored brown of about 11" on a golden stonefly nymph. The upper section did not harbor the insects that the lower section I fished did (below Ellingson to Mile Marker 3), but I did uncover various small mayfly nymphs (beatis, pmd) and caddis larvae as well. No hatches to speak of, but it was a cold morning and it did not start to really warm up until about 10:30 or 11:00, and by that time I was fishing the Lower section so there may have been something happening on the upper river later on the day. The upper river is at a higher elevation and the water temps were very cold (upper 30s). The lower river below Ellingson widens and the gradient decreases significantly, producing a lot of "fishy" looking water to throw a fly into. It is easy to read water that pretty much gives away the location of the browns holding in there, although you cannot really sight fish for them. With the weather warming up, I fished here from about 11:30 -3:00 pm. There was a small pmd (sz 16) hatch that came off about 1:00 pm, along with a few small golden stones (yellow sallies if you will) that were fluttering about near the water as well. Water temps were higher (mid-upper 40s). Being stuck in a nymping mode, I continued to ply the depths with a nymph rig and landed three (losing three as well) browns between 10-13" all on a golden stonefly imitation. With more time, I would have stayed and explored the lower river some more but what I did see here convinced me that I will be back for another stay in the near future.
Sunday, June 13
Made the trip to Dillon and spent the day fishing Poindexter Slough. I fished from about 12:30 - 5:30 and for the first time, I was able to shun the nymph rig and go after some fish which were responding to a hatch on or near the surface. Soon after arriving, I found of pod of fish consistently feeding on a strong hatch of pmd's (there also were some small beatis duns mixed in with the pmd's), although the riseforms were indicating that the fish were feeding subsurface or in the film more so than on top. A few duns were being taken by the fish but mostly the fished appeared to be keyed in on emergers or nymphs ascending to the surface to hatch. I decided to fish a pmd sparkle dun with a small pheasant tail (20) as the dropper fly. These fish were very spooky and the only way I could present the fly to them was by casting straight downstream and then feeding line out to extend my drift to where the fish were feeding. It took me awhile to get into position to cast without putting the fish down (as usual, there was little room to cast with all the surrounding brush on the banks), but once I did I began to hook into some very nice fish. While I did manage to get one fish to take the dun pattern (I unfortunately broke him off), the key to this situation was to keep the fly in the top 6" of the water column and actively retrieve the fly following the dead drift. Stripping the pheasant tail back against the current produced six solid hookups, but only one fish to hand (a brown of about 13"). After about 35-40 minutes, the fish stopped feeding (or likely I put them down) so I moved on to scope out other locations. I happend upon a nice stretch of water where you could see fish holding near the bottom in very specific feeding lanes where they would barely have to move to intercept the abundant mayfly nymphs which were drifting to them. Since I am of the opinion that sight fishing is the most exciting way to catch trout, I began to work this area of the stream with a hare's ear soft hackle that I would cast upstream and let it drift down slowly to where the trout were holding. There were 6-8 fish in this section,with the biggest one being about 18". It took me awhile to get the fly in the largest fish's lane at the right depth, but when I did, he sucked it right in and within a few minutes I had a gorgeous 18-19" brown trout to hand. That (at the time) was the fish of my trip and made my day there. I went on to hook three or four fish in that area, landing two of them (both browns).
Monday, June 14th
The streams in the Livingston area were all pretty much blown out, so I decided to bite the bullet and spend 75 bucks to fish Armstrong's Spring Creek which was, to put it mildly, well worth the money. The creek itself is absolutely beautiful. The back drop of snow capped mountains was spectacular as I stood in the creek and thought that this is what a trout stream is supposed to be like. Fortunately on this day, there were not a lot of other people fishing the creek with me. Those that were seemed to be all fishing the first 1/4 mile section of the creek upstream from the farmhouse. With that, I decided to work my way upstream until I could no longer see any other people. This approach paid off as I do not believe this fish had seen any other flies that day but mine. The upper section offered lots of sight fishing opportunities as well and most of my time was spend sight fishing for large browns and rainbows until the clouds came in and the wind kicked in to high gear by late afternoon. The fish were holding very tight to the bottom and not moving much. They were definitely feeding as every few seconds you could see the whites of their mouths as they open to suck in a drifiting mayly nymph, midge larva, etc.. No hatches came off that day, and there was no surface activity to speak of. Nymphing was the name of the game and the two most successful patterns for me were a small (sz 18) bh pmd nymph trailed by a size 16 hare's ear soft hackle. Like most spring creeks, this one was rich in insect life underneath the surface. I uncovered large numbers of beatis and pmd nymphs, some golden stone nymphs (only in the swifter sections of the creek), and fair numbers of grey sow bugs and cream colored midge larvae (20-24) in the slower sections of the creek. Stealth was of prime importance on this creek so I often found myself casting from a kneeling position so as not to put down fish. All told, I managed to hook over 20 fish for the day, but landed only about 10-12 of them. The highlight of the day was hooking and landing a brown that was close to 20" which I had been sight fishing for. The lowlight of the day was sightfishing for a huge rainbow (well over 20 inches and likely close to 5 lbs) and hooking him, but failing to think ahead of how to play the fish should I hook him which resulted in my breaking this fish off on his initial run.
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