Each year when the larch start to turn on my side of the mountains, I load up my truck and head east to challenge the Missouri River.
"It's like fishing for sharks--you know there are big fish here," says guide Paul Roos. "Searching for them gets in your blood."
Roos quietly worked the oars as our raft drifted casually down the Missouri River. Cliffs, bluffs, and hills, their vegetation turned raw sienna by crisp late-October nights, rose high above us. A few puffy clouds drifted in a limitless sky. It was just nine o'clock in the morning, but the air was already pleasantly warm in western Montana--a beautiful day to be on the river but not the nasty, snow-flecked weather needed to start the big browns moving up from Canyon Ferry on their annual 20-mile spawning jaunt that produces some of the finest trophy-trout fishing in the state.
My companion in the front of the raft hammered the brushy banks and deep eddies with a Woolly Bugger, one of the most productive patterns on the Missouri.
"Some old-timers use nothing else here," Roos says.
My friend made another quick cast to a pocket under a clump of bushes, and on the second strip of line a brown nailed the fly. After a short, strong fight, a fat 15-inch brown came to the net. But we were chasing large browns--fish that exceed 10 pounds and occasionally top 15. "Double-digit," was the oft-heard phrase from another member of our group.
FROM MID-OCTOBER THROUGH NOVEMBER prespawn browns swim upriver from several large reservoirs to their spawning grounds. This prespawn and spawning period occurs on all the big rivers of the West, but on the Missouri breathtakingly large browns emerge from reservoirs such as Canyon Ferry and Toston Dam.
Earlier in the fall there is plenty of fishing for resident trout that exceed several pounds. (The Missouri browns are self-sustaining; the river's rainbow population is augmented by a vigorous Montana stocking program.) On sunny days the fish hug the brush-covered, undercut banks, afraid to expose themselves to predators in the bright light. But once the weather becomes overcast, wet, and nasty, the big browns throw caution to the winds and move into open water. That's when the really exciting action starts.
Earlier in the fall we fished a section of the river south of Great Falls around Cascade, and despite the clouds, wind, and low water, we managed to catch a number of hefty rainbows and browns on small Baetis spinner imitations. The section of river we were fishing this October day was from the put-in just below Toston Dam down to the take-out at the small town of Toston, about 45 minutes from the state capitol of Helena.
From the confluence of the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers for well over 100 miles, the fishing for trophy browns and large rainbows is excellent--as good as it gets.
In one section of the Missouri recent electro-shocking surveys indicated 2,500 resident catchable trout per mile and over 100 fish exceeding 18 inches. This is a river where the amount of trout per mile is measured in tons, not pounds. Add the large prespawn migratory browns to this tonnage and you have some special fishing. The largest brown I have caught during the special October fishing weighed eight pounds. I have taken several browns and rainbows in the five- to six-pound class. The truly big one still awaits me.
According to Mark Lere of the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, the stretch of the Missouri supplied with spawning browns from Hauser Reservoir is a little better than the stretch supplied with spawning browns from Canyon Ferry Reservoir. Lere says there appears to be a recruitment problem in Canyon Ferry. The Hauser section receives more fishing pressure and has historically produced larger fish, but, Lere says, both sections are trophy waters. Below Holter rainbows outnumber browns. There are more, smaller fish. Last summer I saw a number of rainbows and browns caught in the two- to three-pound range one windy afternoon.
Even though the weather was magnificent on this trip, the fishing was tough, as it usually is when one chases big fish. The goal is not to catch large numbers of fish but rather to catch the largest brown of a lifetime.
WHEN A LARGE BROWN BOILS the water near the bank as it takes a minute Baetis or Trico imitation on the surface and then streaks down river, any tippet, no matter how strong, seems inadequate. We're not talking about a rod bent double as it horses a two-pound fish to the raft to be netted prior to release. No., with this fishing you simply hang on for dear life while the guide quickly beaches the craft. You clamber over the side and run stumbling and tripping after a trout gone berserk, charging like a runaway freight train.
Admittedly, this doesn't happen often--it didn't for me this particular autumn day--but when it does, maybe once a year, maybe once a decade, the thousands of casts, the bone-chilling damp weather and, yes, the boredom all vanish somewhere back upriver.
The Missouri is classic big water. It begins as pure snowmelt high in the rugged mountains of the Yellowstone Park region. After its official start at Three Forks, west of Bozeman, the river flows through canyons and benchland that lies leisurely along both banks before climbing into various mountain ranges to the east and west. It is great country.
THE WATERS OF THE MISSOURI are full of aquatic life--Tricos, caddis, stoneflies, mayflies, craneflies, and more. During September through early October, Baetis emerge from late morning until around four in the afternoon. Nymphs prefer the faster water but have adapted to most of the flows the Missouri offers. The dun is probably the most important stage for fly fishers, but a nymph pattern fished in the surface film just prior to emergence can also take trout. The size of the duns varies from #16 through #24; the smaller insects are more prevalent in autumn.
Tricos hatch from August through September, too soon for the fall run of large fish, but Tricos provide action for the two- to three-pounders during morning hours. The Missouri's Tricos range in size from #18 to #22.
The flies for the spawning-run browns are big, size 2 and larger, and they often have a small split-shot or two cinched on at the head of the pattern. Roos uses a variety of streamers including Woolly Buggers, Spruce patterns (light and dark), Zonkers, Girdle Bugs, Marabou Muddlers, and sculpin imitations (marabou) among others. He fishes tight against the banks, through riffles, in eddies and pools, and through the long glides so common on the Missouri.
For Baetis I prefer David Hughes's Little Olive Parachute pattern and an olive nymph in a comparable size. And for the Tricos I use a poly-wing spinner. Casting these with accuracy requires practice and patience.
MOST OF MY FISHING is done on the small streams and mountain lakes in the northwest corner of Montana, where #18 and smaller flies are common. Back home I usually use a six-foot, three-inch four-weight outfit, but for the October browns I use a nine-foot rod with a seven- or eight-weight line.
Add to the equation sleet and wind, as we experienced the next day, and casting becomes sporting at best. One day in a gale the two of us in the boat made use of a sidearm sling-cast that more closely resembled lobbing a hand grenade into an enemy pillbox. An ugly technique to be sure, but it was the only way to cheat the wind and put the fly flush to the bank where the browns were. There were times when we turned over three-pound fish in only a few inches of water. I could spot their fins waving back and forth above the surface before they struck the fly.
Once you make the cast, you strip the line in two-foot strips until the cast is fished out. The browns often follow the fly right to the raft before taking--a heart-stopping experience.
The most common mistake made on the Missouri is not getting the fly to the bottom, where the fish are. Casts quartering upstream help, as do high-density sinking-tip lines and adding weight above the fly when you use a floating line. Some people prefer to attach weight to a dropper-like setup, but most fly fishers feel this rig destroys the motion of the retrieve and causes more bottom hang-ups than other methods. Teeny 200 line is an excellent shooting-taper for fishing large wets through shallow runs and riffles.
Brown trout are no more predictable than any other salmonid species, so the speed and the depth of the retrieve must be modified constantly until you find the right combination.
THE SAME IS TRUE OF FLY SELECTION. While I am now a Woolly Bugger convert, Roos taught me that color is often critical to success. He suggested an olive body as the prime choice, followed by black and all-white.
Some local experts believe an angler will someday land a fish in the 30-pound range. But according to Mark Lere, the maximum size is probably 15 pounds. He says reports of 20-pound fish being caught are probably accurate, but he is more comfortable with the 15-pound figure and doubts that the browns can reach 30 pounds. Lere says that while browns weighing between 10 and 15 pounds are not common, they are caught each season throughout the stretches mentioned above.
Copyright (c) 1996 John Holt. All rights reserved.
Home | Library | Fishing | Fly Fishing