Montana Fishing

[Kevin Goding]

Got a chance to do some fishing out of Missoula the last few days. I tend to stick to the small wadeable streams, so have no idea how the float trips are doing. Fished the Monture area on Wednesday, was sad to see part of one creek drying up when we just had some excellent cutt fishing just two weeks ago. Caught some nice fish out of Monture creek, a couple of fish pushed 20 inches, all of them were cutts and really fat. On another nearby stream caught some brooks, cutts, and 2 bulltrout. I just throw terrestrial patterns all day long and haven't seen any real hatches of late.

Fished the East fork of the Bitteroot this afternoon before it started dumping rain. Didn't catch anything real big, but caught 21 fish in about an hour and a half. Stay out of the shallow stuff, fish the deeper runs and riffles. I missed quite a few strikes as well, and a lot of fish missed the fly completely, as the fish were trying to do grab and runs. Mostly cutts and cuttbows and one german brown.

[Bryan Morgan]

Kevin, If you get a chance, fish the West Fork of the Bitterroot. My wife and I fish it the first week of October every year. That is where I got my first Bull Trout also. To get to West Fork, take the Conner Cutoff befor you get to Darby. I think the West Fork oufishes the East, but you will have to be the judge.