Where Have I Been Fishing?
Most of my fly fishing lately has been on stillwaters around Bozeman.
Our local rivers have been changing a lot with the weather, and when I fish on my days off, I’m usually wade fishing. Lakes are my favorite.
I’ve been spending time on lakes around Dillon, MT, and a few other spots within an hour or so of Bozeman. Most of that fishing has been long days staring at an indicator.
Gear and Rigs
My main lake setup is a 9-foot 6-weight Sage X (discontinued) with a Scientific Anglers Infinity Plus line. That rod has become my favorite stillwater setup. It roll casts well from the bank, handles indicator rigs, and still has enough backbone when a better fish eats.
For indicator fishing, I’m pretty superstitious. I like an orange indicator. Pink works, and I don’t mind the red and white oros indicators either, but orange is what I trust when I’m staring at a bobber for hours. Confidence matters when the whole game is waiting. I think you have to have faith in every piece of equipment you take on the water... even the indicator
My favorite setup lately has been a double balanced leech rig. I usually start with a 9-foot tapered 3x leader to the first fly, then 4x from the first to the second fly. Most of the time I’ll run the first leech 5 or 6 feet below the indicator, then another leech 1.5 to 2.5 feet below that.
I don’t always start deep. If I’m seeing fish cruising or rising, I’ll shorten things up. When fish are moving, I don’t think those flies need to be buried.
That first bobber down usually tells me a lot. Once I get an eat, I can decide whether to stay with the same setup, move spots, adjust depth, or switch tactics. On a new lake, that first fish gives you something to work from.
After watching an indicator for a while, I’ll usually pick up a streamer rod at some point. For that, I’ve been fishing a 9-foot 7-weight Hardy Ultralight X with a 210-grain Scientific Anglers Trout Express. I like that line because it gets down fast, letting me fish smaller or lighter streamers without waiting forever for them to sink.
For lake streamers, I usually run a short leader. Two feet of 0x to three feet of 1x is about where I like it. Inlets and outlets are usually where I start. That’s where I’m looking for the more aggressive fish, especially brown trout.
My Fly Fishing Journey as of Late
A lot of what keeps me interested in lake fishing is the chance at a big brown trout. I’ll check Montana FWP stocking information before heading somewhere new, but I’m usually thinking about whether there could be brown trout moving through that system. A 30-inch Montana brown trout on foot is still the fish I’m chasing.
I know some anglers don’t get too excited about stocked rainbows, but I still think they tell you a lot about a lake. A hot head balanced leech will get a bobber down in a lot of places. But when a fish eats a chironomid, that always feels a little better.
When I fish chironomids, I usually run them as the first fly in the indicator setup with a leech below. Sometimes I’ll tie the leech off the chironomid hook eye. Other times I’ll fish the chironomid off a tag from a blood knot. Either way, I like having both food sources in the water.
That’s been most of my fishing lately. Lakes, indicators, leeches, chironomids, and a lot of waiting.
As we get further into June, I’m looking forward to getting back on the rivers more consistently. Salmonflies are getting closer, and the river I’ve been watching the most is the Yellowstone River. With the low snowpack and the typical Montana spring "yoyo" weather we’ve had, there’s a chance the Yellowstone could be clear and fishable when the salmonflies pop.
That’s the thing I’m most curious about right now. If the weather cooperates, it could happen.
Who I Have Been On the Water With
Tristan
Bozeman fly fishing guide Tristan Wickland is about as fishy as they come. We've been fishing together for several years now, and somewhere along the way we've managed to spend just as much time drinking beers together as we have chasing trout.
Some of those beers have happened downtown. A lot more have been spent in drift boats and driving around Montana looking for fish. Tristan is the kind of person who's always thinking about where the next fish is when he should be doing school work.
A lot of my days off end up involving Tristan, and more often than not we're heading somewhere without much of a plan other than finding water that looks interesting and seeing what happens.
Amanda
I've also been spending a lot of time fishing with my partner, Amanda. She's about two years into her fly fishing journey, and it's been a lot of fun watching her progress.
Amanda usually isn't too interested in driving an hour and a half down a dirt road for a slim chance at finding a trout in some random place I've never fished before. That's more my thing.
Most of the time when we're fishing together, we're sticking closer to home and fishing rivers I know well, like the Gallatin River or Lower Madison River. There's something nice about showing up with a pretty good idea of where the fish are and what they're likely to eat.
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