Montana Trout Scout

Stillwater News

Well, I'm sitting here writing a report instead of fishing. It's dumping snow again, the lower Stilly is dirty and the upper is too low to float. My Bronco is sitting out on the street, boat hooked up and ready to go. Looks so sad with 5 inches of snow on it.

I wade fished the Stillwater yesterday. Above the Rosebud the clarity is good. A bit tea colored. Had a good BWO hatch starting at about 1 PM. Fish were on them. About 2 PM, March Browns started coming off and the fish quickly changed over to them. No sign of caddis yet. I moved down below the 'Buds about 3, just to see what was up. (Yes, I walked away from rising fish. Just so I could report conditions to you, gentle reader.) Wound up at Whitebird. There were BWO's and a few fish on them, but nothing like upstream. Good numbers of bugs, but the fish couldn't reallys see them in the murky water. Visibility was about a foot and a half. I managed to find a couple of March Browns after looking pretty hard. Nymphing was good, though. The water temperature was a uniform 40 degrees all the way up and down the river.

Don't be fooled by the flow charts. The Stilly is reporting 850 cfs, but a lot of that is coming from the Rosebud. They're releasing water from Mystic right now. That's why it's dirty down low. It's very bony above the convergence. If you go float the Cliff to Johnson's stretch, be prepared to drag the boat a bit. I'd recommend wade fishing instead.

Rock Creek Fishing Well

I've been fishing Rock Creek a lot lately. Everything else has been blown out due to the warm weather last week. Rock Creek's been high but clear and fishing well on nymphs. The hare's ear was the big winner. Not much in the way of dry fly fishing, but I've seen a few March browns and stone flies around. We had a good BWO hatch on Thursday, but the fish never really got on them. The only rising fish were in the most difficult lies imaginable. Fun to fish to, but be prepared to lose a few flies. I stuck three fish on drys on Thursday, all of which were actively rising. Nothing tried to eat my dry out in the open. The creek has been high and fast, so the current is keeping the fish close to the bottom or right on the banks, buried in that lovely fly eating brush. With the return of cold nights, the flow is dropping again. I'm looking for good dry fly fishing this week, but the weather is supposed to be crappy. It's snowing hard right now.

The Stillwater and Yellowstone have been muddy, but both are dropping right now. The Stilly is clear above the Rosebud convergence. I've not heard of any hatches going on, but that will change in a hurry as water levels and clarity stabilize. Supposed to be cold and rainy/snowy all week, perfect dry fly weather.

Dry Fly Fishing on the Stillwater!

Despite the copious snowfall and continued winter weather, dry flies are happening on the Stilly. Seems the fish and flies don't watch the evening news. Go figure.

Kory and I fished the Stilly yesterday. We both tied on nymphing rigs early (started about noon) and caught fish on hare's ears and pheasant tail type bugs. Midges started coming off about 1:00 and fish got on them. I'm talking big midges, 18 at least. Kory commented they were almost chronomid size. I tied on a 16 olive parachute with a cluster trailing. No fish ever ate the cluster. The parachute got gobbled every time it went over a rising fish. Curious, no? Then, around 2:30, baetis (blue winged olives) started coming off. The fish were keying on the mayflies. After looking closely at the BWO's, I found they were very dark, slate grey with an olive tinge. I think the fish were used to seeing both the large black midge and the dark BWO so that's why my size 16 olive parachute got eaten. I tie mine with a dark hackle and a blend of olive and grey dubbing. 

Most of the fish were in the slower water but not the actual tail out. They were in a bit of current. It's still cold over there, so they can't hang right in the riffles. Look for noses in the current lines off rip rap banks and in shallow water between the riffle heads and the tail outs. 

We caught two rainbows that were charcoal  colored. Both were about 14 inches. That says the spawn is close but the big fish aren't up very far yet. We fished mostly above the Rosebud convergence. I did try the streamer after the hatch ended, but nothing wanted to play. The big fish of the day was a 16 inch brown trout on the parachute. All in all, a good day of dry fly fishing in early April.