The Spring Fish Window
May is one weird month for fishing here in Montana. The weather is warming up and the rivers tend to be all over the place. Some years your only real option is the Missouri. Other years you can fish in town the entire month of May with exceptional fishing. It’s a month where staying local with the ability to hit the river at a moments notice can really pay off big. This spring we had a big push of water come through for a few weeks. Rivers were up with okay fishing if you knew all the right spots to target. The Missouri was the obvious choice for many anglers. It was crazy busy at times, but exceptional dry fly fishing could be had when the conditions lined up. This past week though, all the local Missoula rivers dropped hard over the course of a few days. Cold temps up high shut down runoff momentarily and the fish took note. When Josh called saying I needed to fish tomorrow I listened. Over time I’ve learned that when Josh says we need to fish he’s almost always right. We met up early the next morning and took the raft out for a rip.
The brown trout were on the prowl.
More aggressive browns.
Montana Shark
Chunky dude. Going into summer strong.
Patience with the fly allowed Josh to hook this beast and a wild rodeo ensued. Fortunately he found the net.
We made an extra long float and I’m glad we did. The action wasn’t consistent throughout the day. The morning was hot and then things tapered off. Sticking to the gameplan and fishing hard through the cold water kept us in the game and at the end of the day we’d definitely caught a healthy number of big brown trout. Life is good!
Written by Zack Boughton
Images by Josh Rokosch and Zack Boughton
