Missouri River "Spring" Fly Fishing

A couple of buddies of mine and I went over to Craig, MT last weekend to quell some cabin fever and hopefully catch some eager Missouri River trout. The forecast was for 65 and some sun... but as can often happen in Montana in the spring, the forecast should have been for WIND.

We got blown around quite a bit, and didn't do so well fishing out of the boat. We were actually skunked both days from the boat, but were able to catch some nice rainbows from shore on Sunday. Nymphing was pretty much the only option due to the wind, and the bows were pretty eager to eat small San Juan worms in soft water and in deep buckets. We had one around 20" and the others were typical healthy Missouri River Rainbows from 16-18".

Izaak's still isn't open, so if you go, bring some food. Although microwaveable pork rinds are available at Joe's Bar. I'd never seen these before, and being a pork rinds fan, I had to try 'em. The barkeep popped them the little bag of dried up skins in the micro, and in a minute, we had some hot puffy chicarrones! Dump a little hot sauce on those suckers and they're pretty darn good.

If you're looking to head to the Mo, visit our favorite Missouri River flyfishing guides at Dry Fly Outfitters to book a trip. They specialize in dry fly fishing the Missouri, and they'll put you on 'em!

Dry Fly Outfitters - Missouri River Fly Fishing Guides

Zandy and client with a nice tailwater Rainbow

My old buddy Zandy got his outfitter's license after guiding on the Mo for about 10 years, and started up a Dry Fly Outfitters. He just launched a new website recently...check it out when you get a chance! Here's a few links to the new site...

Missouri River Fly Fishing Guides

Fly fishing on the Missouri River

Fly fish the Yellowstone River

If you're coming to Montana and want to poke some big sippin' browns on the Missouri River, he's the guy to help you do it!

I'm getting a little antsy to fish, I think some guys are heading over to the the Big Horn in two weeks, hopefully I'll have some trout pics to show you soon.

One of Zandy's clients with monster Missouri brown!

Mo Mo Browns

Yeah Bernie!!!

The Mighty Mo

As you can see from our kayaking/rafting posts, many of the rivers here in Southwestern Montana are pretty blown out right now, as runoff is in full swing. In order to try to find some trout in a period of high-water, my friends Jason, Jeremy and I decided to meet up with our guide buddies Zandy and Trevor over on the Missouri. They had just moved back to the area for the season, but didn't have any trips booked quite yet, so we thought we'd pay them a visit from Bozeman. Our ol' pal from Missoula, Jessica Hazzard Jones, brought her dog Ruby to round out the crew. We stayed over by the little town of Craig, and it proved to be an excellent place to kick off the summer here in Montana. The sun was high and bright, the wind surprisingly calm, and the fish were lookin' up!


Saturday (Cinco de Mayo) ended up being more of a booze cruise than anything else, but we loved every minute of it...caught a few fish on nymphs, then just played music and drank wine on our journey back down to Craig...(read - Local Joe's Bar). It was a hell of a float, and as shown below, Hazzard showed us how they do it over in Missoulatown.

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Yep, that pretty much sums up Saturday. Sunday was a different deal, we were lucky enough to have Zandy and Trevor row us on their home water. They didn't dissapoint, getting us into a few beautiful rainbows and more than a few hungry, fiesty, gorgeous browns. Jessica caught her first trout on a dry, thanks to Zandy's instruction. Trevor gave me ample opportunities to poke sipping browns, a few of which I flailed on, but stuck enough to make my wrist ache by the end of it. All in all, we had an amazing day. One hightlight was a brown that jumped 3 or 4 feet out of the water after being hooked, something we rarely see. We caught several nice browns on dries that day...none of which were small.



It was the first weekend that we realized... "nice, the winter's really over". That's a great feeling when you live in Montana, and we're all psyched to have finally rounded the corner.

If anyone's interested in fishing the Missouri River with a seasoned guide, give these guys a call and they'll put you on fish.

Zandy Zechella (706) 614-0780 - Trevor Madden (406) 459-9221

Zandy has a new Montana Fly Fishing Guides website. Check it out to book a trip.