06-13-2016, 03:18 AM
Got back late last night from a quick trip to the Big Hole north of Dillon, MT in search of the Salmonfly hatch. After getting some good information from the Headwaters Flyshop in Melrose, we started wading the river at the various public access points--all of which appear to be well marked and, apparently, well known.
The first afternoon, I saw some caddis on the water that were getting a little attention form the fish. I caught a whitefish and a small rainbow on a caddis emerger (size 16 or so), but then saw that one of my partners had a rod doubled over with what turned out to be a 20 inch brown. That was enough to persuade me to switch to the huge salmonfly pattern (I should have taken a picture of it because it is impressive to look at. I can attach one later if there is interest). I tried a few nymphs, but the rest of our fish came on the salmonfly on top. The interesting thing is that even though I saw a lot of salmon flies around the willows and on the water, i don't think I ever saw one get eaten. So it was basically just searching with the fly.
My best fish was an 18 inch brown, pictured here. I'm glad to have had the experience, but my guess (especially after looking around at the other reports here) is that if we had worked that hard at fishing locally, we could have done at least as well. The entire region looked like a drift boat convention, and in places it was almost bumper to bumper (stern to bow?) traffic. Most of my success came in the form of cheer-leading for drift boat anglers who had fish on.
But, it's a beautiful country, up there.
[signature]
The first afternoon, I saw some caddis on the water that were getting a little attention form the fish. I caught a whitefish and a small rainbow on a caddis emerger (size 16 or so), but then saw that one of my partners had a rod doubled over with what turned out to be a 20 inch brown. That was enough to persuade me to switch to the huge salmonfly pattern (I should have taken a picture of it because it is impressive to look at. I can attach one later if there is interest). I tried a few nymphs, but the rest of our fish came on the salmonfly on top. The interesting thing is that even though I saw a lot of salmon flies around the willows and on the water, i don't think I ever saw one get eaten. So it was basically just searching with the fly.
My best fish was an 18 inch brown, pictured here. I'm glad to have had the experience, but my guess (especially after looking around at the other reports here) is that if we had worked that hard at fishing locally, we could have done at least as well. The entire region looked like a drift boat convention, and in places it was almost bumper to bumper (stern to bow?) traffic. Most of my success came in the form of cheer-leading for drift boat anglers who had fish on.
But, it's a beautiful country, up there.
[signature]