Memorial Day Weekend Fishing Report, Weather, and Family
Big Family Weekend Ahead!
Fun times for all this holiday session. Outdoors, family, fly fishing. Fun.
And Rain. Lots of it.
Bring rain gear or get it at Headhunters. Your choice.
Bugs. Lots of bugs out there. BWO, Midge, Caddis, and some wayward PMD’s. Look for action in the afternoons. More caddis lower, BOW’s everywhere, and the PMD’s will also start on the bottom end. Could be some great fishing in the rain. Fish like reduced surface tension. Because bugs do. More efficient emergence with the water cohesion or adhesion or whatever the break is. Sorta learned those two terms in 7am Chemistry 1985. Really not paying attention much in those years. To Chemistry.
And, bugs get beat down by the rain on the surface. So, cripples are big thing. Try that Quigley’s Half Dun Hatching pattern we have in the store for inclement weather success. Ever heard of a trapped dun, a transitional dun?
Nymphers are getting it done. Try a worm in the rain. BWO, PMD, Caddis, and Midge nymphs on the menu this weekend. Short or long your decision.
Streamer anglers do love rain. The fish get kinda dumb and stage up in the shallows protected by the broken surface. Light lines and light flies will find a few biggies in the flats for sure.
Gonna be lots of anglers around this holiday. We will probably not see the splash and giggle crew not eh water with the weather conditions predicted to be dismal. But the first 85 degree weekend with sun, they will be on the river. It is everybody’s resource. Yep, share the road.
Remember that we have the best and widest variety of lodging here in the Missouri River Canyon. CraigLodging.com is your source for Craig Trout Camp here in town, and beyond. Riverfront properties for rent, from 2 beds to 10. We can find lodging that suits your needs. We have 39 rental properties in our vast Mo River catalog! Questions about lodging feel free to call 406-235-3447 ext 1 for more info.
Shop Online if you are not gonna fish this weekend!
Shop open early and late. Come by this weekend for Free Coffee, information, want to know how and what to do? Yep, come in and we will set you up. The friendly fly shop in Craig. Shuttle Service for your convenience, lodging, guide trips, rental boats, terminal gear, fly rods on sale, need a new fly line, sun gear, ranger from SIMMS, Orvis and the Carbon Waders and Jacket from Skwala, the 1st Flies Under the Big Sky, and more!
Will we see action on the Dearborn this weekend? Flows rising. Shuttles available @ HH.
4 Comments.
“It is everybody’s resource. Yep, share the road.”
Good for you, Mark. Thanks for the adult take (as always). The outside is in us all, and we’re all out there trying to connect with the natural world in whatever way we can. For some, it’s stalking a slurping rainbow in the flats. For others, it’s sitting in a unicorn inflatable with a cooler of White Claw. Whatever. Kudos to us all. At least we are getting outside and enjoying and appreciating the river and surrounding environs.
Mark
A thank you for your passion.. thank you for caring about a casting impaired middle aged man yielding a bamboo stick hooking a jewel when he couldn’t get a drift close… thank you for not being focused on returning at set time but 2 1/2 hours late cause you love teaching sharing your passion … you the reel deal and rivers like the Mo that can get loved to death need river keepers like you…
Peace brother – release those T-Shirts “Good Drifts Near Fish”
Seeking Perfection
“Good drifts near fish”… words from an impassioned spirit born of the River echo above the music of riffles embedded in this Montana stream …
The words are meant to teach not entertain, and eminate from insight earned not by birthright nor business succession, but from years of leaning relentlessly with a burning passion into this River and its multi-colored jewels which seek nor want of attention…
“Good drifts near fish”…perfection I learn is not sought, demanded, expected nor rewarded by the targets of my dreams of this River, nor the River’s Spirit…
But we are taught, encouraged and instructed from the moment light enters our eyes that there is but one path, that perfection yields success, and with such comes joy, happiness, peace and calm…
Our earliest memories are often soaked in bleach, recipients of cleansed instructions on life imparted from those tired and broken, whose vantage points are blurred from the pain of their failures, the fear of realizations of a path chosen, as much as the path turned away from…
“Good drifts near fish”… a metronome is used to demand compliance, that there is but only one way, that every line cast forward towards hope may only extend outward to that which we seek by reaching backward in perfect time, unknowingly touching the pain and fears of our past out of seeking a perfect loop…
Mountains, blue sky and solace from the worries of yesterday, today and tomorrow are framed by laughter, peace and calm
as loud as any reel being opened by the run of the River’s ruby colored inhabitants…
There is no life noise on this River, and whatever vestiges of fear based thoughts remain are washed over by the gentle, peaceful and intoxicating rhythmic rise of a pod of the Rivers targets sitting within reach of my shaking hands …
“Good drifts near fish”…My eyes and focus look to my right… a sliding ribbon of blue pushing relentlessly away from me, from my reach my hoped for impact…but this River like all Rivers provides hope if one is simply willing to look away from that which is gone, pushing aside the past and instead turn towards the future the River’s endless upstream current promises….
Simple yet intentional words, shared with purpose and bathed in the purity of good intent, find a lasting home within my inner voice …
“Good drifts near fish”…these words will remain with me even when not heard nor spoken …like lyrics trapped by a scratch upon an album, these words are holding in place quietly, until my thoughts and memories return the needle of my inner voice back to the holding place, where the words and volume will hold timelessly the teachings of such good words…
Am familiar with the acronym PMD, BWO, but never heard of BOW. Maybe you can enlighten me. Thanks!
That’s what you do when you approach the big ones. Bow before you cast. You don’t do that on the WB? And hide you face if you make a few bad drifts…