from MT

[_6x_]

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.
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[remo_5_0]

Sounds like a fun trip, although it wasn't the most productive it is still nice to fish new waters.
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[Bmarsh]

You're report echos what my experiences have been on the salmon fly hatches on the north and south forks of the snake growing up in Idaho. The water gets over loaded with boats and usually the fishing really isn't that good. I got to the point I wouldn't fish them till after the crowds following them where gone and I would then swing Sandymites and Mackay Specials for a few days after and that was usually really good fishing.
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[riverdog]

If you're in to small stream fishing Utah has some killer salmonfly hatches. The Blacksmith Fork is well known and I generally avoided in favor of solitude elsewhere. through a lot of time on the water I found 5 streams in the Spanish Fork watershed with the capacity to have good to great salmonfly hatches. As these streams get little to medium pressure they usually require far more stealth than heavier fished streams however the less educated fish are easy pickings once you get that down. Truth is the salmonfly hatch might be the one time you can get away with being less than invisible to the fish as they feed with reckless abandon on the leading edge of the salmonfly hatch. All these streams pump out trout in the upper teens except for Thistle Creek were 18-19 inch was the biggest I've ever caught and fairly uncommon. THe rest have fair number of fish over 20 inches. . It might just be one in 20 or 30 fish but if your pulling in 2 dozen fish an hour that's not a bad return with time invested. My worst outing on an unexpected salmonfly hatch in full swing was about 50 fish almost all in the 15 inch range in 2 hours. It was up about 6800 feet- higher than I ever encountered them before and I didn't have any salmon flies on me- so I used a size 10 tungsten prince nymph. Still a great time fishing even if my preferred flies were a couple miles away at my car. Oh and I had it all to myself as I did 90% of my time fishing streams in Utah. There won't be any fishing reports summoning the masses so this takes an investment in timing and understanding where the hatches are likely to be productive. Far better to earn it than share an overfished hatch with someone that just flew in from NYC.
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[_6x_]

That is a great suggestion. I used to fish small streams all the time, but I've gotten out of the habit. I've looked at a few of those streams going into the Spanish Fork, but I have not invested that much time. You are doing well at taking those good fish out of small streams. I generally have a hard time getting into the upper teens (say, >15 in) in that kind of water. But I think it is absolutely true that if you just go to where the 'hot' report is at any given time, then you will always be following a crowd of people.

Anyway I should get out and give more of those places a look. With grouse season now almost on the horizon again, there is even more reason to explore some of those places.
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[Bmarsh]

That's some good advice. Don't let the elevation shock you on where you will find them. Highest I've ever seen them was at 11k up in the windrivers one august when we were back in Titcomb Basin.
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