Love that dirty water

There is always some fishing to be done in southwest Montana, even when the reports might indicate otherwise. Clay and I went back to the upper Madison cuz it was good enough last week - it was good again. We landed 35 between us, up to 19 inches. Relatively few baetis, but caddis and March browns made their spring debuts. The river was slightly green, but not nearly enough to add to the challenge. Soon, it will be time to focus on stillwaters, and so the story moves on...

Prospecting for skwalas

Clay and I hit the lower Gallatin River this afternoon near my old stomping grounds - my old neighbor Jake let us come out. It was good - between the two of us we got 18 fish in about 4.5 hours. The were eating the skwala nymph, the baetis nymph, and the pheasant tail. Oh, and the skwala dry. We saw one shuck and based on appetite for the nymph (and the fact that a fish rose for my indicator and for a baetis nymph dangled carelessly just under the surface), I decided to see if they were looking up. They were- I landed two fish and missed about 6 others on the skwala dry.