Southwest Montana fishing report - late February 2016

Fiesta Mexicana or "The Taco Bus" in Dillon, MT

If you have never eaten at the Taco Bus in Dillon, MT, you are missing out on the best, most authentic, and unique meal in Montana!  Go there!!

For whatever reason, the fly shops in Southwest Montana don't do fishing reports in the winter. We have 4 awesome tailwaters within an hour and a half drive from Butte that fish all winter long. What's the deal!?

I've been really busy with work, teaching, and school but I've made it out the past few weekends to check in on the trout. Here's what I've found:

The Upper Clark Fork:
The river is carrying a ton of water right now.  We are having a pre-runoff runoff.  Southwest Montana had a decent winter run for a while there, maybe even better than last year which was not good for snow and summer flows. That seems to be over now though as early spring has set in big-time.  Let's hope for more snow and a wet spring or the Hoot Owl will wake up again this year. The fishing in the UCF was the slowest of all the rivers and for the most part, downright sucked. Throwing streamers and nymphing was the game, however,  the push of cold water was not on our side.

The Ruby River:
The Ruby is still running turquois.  Does it ever stop?  The fishing resembled the Clark Fork with a weak streamer bite.  The only real action was on winter-type tailwater nymphs right below the dam but even that was slow.  I saw two or three sporadic rises to midges but nothing really going on that front yet.

The Beaverhead:
The Beav is where all the action is.  It has been windier than a bucket full of assholes in SW Montana for the last couple of weeks and any midges have blown clear to Iowa.  The streamer bite was red-hot 2 weeks ago but a little less so last week.  The Poindexter is undergoing some restoration work (I'm getting restoration fatigue) but still fished pretty good with streamers and winter nymphs.  I saw some spawning behavior in some brown trout which was a bit weird.  Be careful of redds.  The midges will be on the main stem if you can avoid the wind.

The Missouri:
Haven't got to the MO yet this year but will in the next couple of days.  From my experience, the nymphing with winter-type nymphs should be great.  March is one of my favorite times to throw streamers on the MO for the biggest browns of the year and the rainbows which are fattening themselves up for the coming spawn.  I always say that some of the best dry fly action is in the next couple months with the midges and BWOs.  The fish haven't been relentlessly pounded on top for months on end by every dude in the world so, they're much more likely to eat a fly.  We'll see how that goes.  More snow, less wind please!