This is my 12th season guiding on the Missouri and surrounding areas. Up until this point, I've never seen the Dearborn River reach a level higher than 5,000 cfs. As of right now at 9:45 pm on the 19th of June, it's at 9,310 cfs and rising! That's f'n crazy.
In the past 72 hours, we've seen pretty much record rainfall in Central Montana. River's across the area were starting to come into shape and be fishable. Not anymore. In fact, even the relatively insulated Missouri has definitely been limited by this rain. It's a tail-water so it doesn't blow out like a free-stone might. However, all the tributaries, large and small, have blown out so there is mud being dumped in; not only from the Dearborn, which is roughly 15 miles downstream of the dam but also from the Little Prickly Pear, Sheep Creek, Wagner Creek, Stickney Creek and all the little creeks that don't even have names. It's kind of crazy. The dam says 14,200 cfs but I don't know if I've never seen the river this high. It's gone up 3 feet in two days and it was already pretty high.
So what does that mean for the fishing? Well, you have the dam...
To be fair, even with a little color, the river does fish down to the confluence of the Dearborn. The problem is, it's only about 15 miles of river and with the flows already high, people are starting up top and everyone is taking out either at Stickney Creek or the Dearborn. And by everyone, I literally mean every guide in the fricken state. That 15 miles of river is being used by locals and by guys from Kalispell, Missoula, Bozeman, Livingston, Billings, the Big Horn, Dillon, etc...The only saving grace is that many guides have recently gotten their captain's licenses and can fish the reservoirs.
So I guess we all get to daisy-chain the Missouri for the next week...well, that's unless you get creative...
Keep 'em where they live...
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