Armstrong Spring Creek

We got a little weather reprieve last week... a 65 degree day!!!! Jessica was kind enough to accompany me to Armstrong Spring Creek where the fish were feeling pretty good about the warm weather as well. Rainbows were eating gray scuds in pretty much every bucket, and the browns were chasing streamers. It was fun while it lasted...we're back to the 30's now. C'mon MAY!!!

I recently stumbled across a local fisherman/photograhper's blog and website...

http://joshuabergan.blogspot.com/

www.joshuabergan.com



Check them out,he has some great shots in there!

Old Man Winter Won't Give Up

We've had a few chances to fly-fish around here in Southwest Montana, but while most of the country is welcoming buds and birds, we're getting dumped on...again. I'm not complaining, I've resolved myself to be appreciative of every drop of moisture this planet gets at this stage of the game. However, it doesn't mean I'm not ready for some warm weather. It will be nice to toss a line without dealing with ice shelfs and insulated jackets. The lower Madison has been fishing pretty well. Here are a couple fish from a float we did last week....and a shot of what it looks like outside this morning.

Armstrong Spring Creek 2-10-2008

We celebrated a bit after this amazing Sunday...

steaks and beers at Sir Scott's Oasis, Manhattan, MT.

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.