Missouri Fishing Report--They're Here...

I took a father/son pairing from Calgary out on Sunday. They were great, the weather was not but the fishing was definitely on. They both caught a bunch and with it being Grant's inaugural fly fishing trip with his dad, I think he's seen enough to want to come back.

 

As for a fishing report, besides just saying it was good, the bugs are definitely out and fish are happy. It's the first time I've seen BWO's this season and quite honestly, it's also the earliest I can remember ever seeing them on the Missouri.

 

We've talked about it before; how people ask when the best time to come out fishing is and I usually tell them it depends on what they're looking for. Then I say for my money, I'll take the early season if I'm looking for fish up that are relatively easy because they haven't been pounded yet and they're coming out of a lethargic, winter mode where they have to eat. I usually tell them about a day John LaRue and I hit a few years back in this same week of April where we had big wet snow-flakes and midges and every fish in the river up eating them. It was absolutely insane.

 

 

Here's LaRue with one of many browns we caught that day on midge clusters. You can see the Craig Bridge in the background. We rowed up from the access site and spent a couple hours on that flat throwing at countless pods of fish. In fact, they weren't really even in pods because they were literally rising across the entire river. We were actually going to run back to the shop and have them not shuttle our rig because we were good with not going any further downstream. (No cell service in Craig back then...) By the time we got back to the ramp though, we were too late and had to keep going. That was one fricken cold mutha on the Mo that day but if you're will to gamble on the weather, the pay-off might be worth it.

 

Now I'm not saying the other day was that good but there were definitely plenty of fish up on midges but they were also eating BWO's and for this time of the year, that's kind of rare. Midges? Absolutely but the mayflies usually don't come out for us for another few weeks. If the weather remains consistent with cold nights and highs in the forties with a few snow storms rolling through, the dry fly action should stay good for a while. It could be an insane spring.

 

Keep 'em where they live...