I'm telling you, if you haven't been out to the Missouri for early spring fishing, you really should. Again we were out a few days ago and the dry fly fishing was epic. It's not that we didn't have to deal with the elements or that the fish would eat anything and everything we through at them, but there were tons of fish up and they did eat. Midges of a few varieties were the flavor but we also got some on larger parachute Adams and when we needed to burn up some water to get down to the take-out, we got some good fish on streamers.
Before we even left the first flat, we anchored up on a pod of fish and stayed there for about an hour before moving downstream. We caught a number of those fish in that pod but no matter what, they just kept coming up. When they did eventually go down, we just pulled up anchor and rowed up to the next pod and kept fishing. Had we thought of it, we would have just left our rig at the put-in and we would have pulled out where we put in; working our way upstream until we ran out of targets. I don't think we would have ran out.
\So why don't people book trips this time of year? First of all, you can never count on the weather. Take a look at the photo. It never got above 37 degrees and it snowed most of the time. The flakes were so big, at one point I got dizzy trying to find my fly drifting one way down the river and the flakes falling the other. I have to say though, if you do hit a good cloudy day, your guide will make it worth your while and a little less painful by planning for shorter trips so that you are never too far from the take-out. The idea is that you will find fish to sit on, which allows for fewer river miles and a lot more opportunity for either shortening up the trip if it gets cold, or working pods late into the day.
The other thing I've heard is that there aren't as many fish because the rainbows are in the tribs spawning. This is true. You don't catch as many rainbows. However, every brown is up on the flats feeding on midges and they have to eat a lot of them to support their diet. They don't seem to be nearly as selective and you can definitely catch some pigs. Like I said, we never ran out of targets and every fish we caught was a brown averaging 18 inches until we got downstream a ways and caught a few small rainbows.
Bugs, bugs, bugs...depending on what section you fish, you will encounter a variety of bugs this time of year but the main staple from March through April is midges. Yes, they are small but like I said, fish eat a ton of them to support their diet and to make up for the winter fasting. It's fairly technical as a fish won't move far for a midge but you usually have a number of fish feeding in a small area. This increases your odds of hitting your target if you're casting over five fish as oppose to just one steady nose poking up along the bank eating caddis. And, because they haven't been hammered yet, you can put the sneak on and get in pretty tight.
The other benefit to fishing this time of year is that many of the outfitters will be more apt to cut you a deal. I do trips for MRO, Headhunters, The Missouri River Lodge, PRO Outfitters, and CrossCurrents out of the Helena/Craig area so if you want to hit it, let me know or contact them and request a trip with me as your guide.
Take care and keep 'em where they live.
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