An Interview With Bozeman Fly Fishing Guide Will Allen

What have you been up to this off-season? How has your winter been?
It’s been great. I’ve been taking care of my horses, getting a little skiing in, and cooking food over in Livingston. Just working, ranching, and skiing. It’s been fun.

Have you been doing any fishing during the off-season? Where?
Yeah, I live on the Yellowstone River, so I’ve been getting out on the nice days. There’s about a three-mile stretch of river right behind the house. I can float it in an hour and a half if I want to, or milk it all day if I want to. I’ve been doing that when the weather’s nice—finding fish when I want to and drinking beer and chilling out when I don’t.

What two hatches are you most excited for this year?
Salmonflies are amazing when they show up, and it’s fun chasing them. Then I’m really into terrestrials, specifically grasshoppers and ants, in the late summer.

What is your favorite Bozeman river to fly fish? What time of year?
I like the Yellowstone River in August. The crowds are a lot lighter than on both the Upper and Lower Madison. With the Yellowstone, we’ve got around 150 miles of good trout water, so it’s much easier to spread out. You see a lot fewer people, and if you know what you’re doing, it can be really fun. It’s a good place to go hunt for a big brown trout.

What technique and fly rod do you enjoy the most? What weight/length? Streamers? Dry flies? Favorite hatches?
I love a good stiff rod with a sidearm cast. Lately, I’ve been fishing the Orvis Helios D in a 9' 5 weight. It’s a little stiffer than the F series and gives you more power, which helps with all the wind we get out here.

I usually fish with a 9-foot rod. Nine-and-a-half is fun too, but I prefer nine. My favorite fishing is dry fly fishing with hoppers in the late summer when the weather’s nice.

Who got you into fly fishing? Where? How long have you been doing it?
I got into fly fishing when I was about eight years old. There was a really cool fly shop in Fairhope, Alabama. The guy who owned it—Spencer Johnson—taught me how to cast a fly rod right there on the street in downtown Fairhope.

After that, I started chasing bluegill, bass, speckled trout, and refish with a fly rod when I was just a kid. I’ve been fly fishing for about 25 years now.

When do you think is the best time to take a fishing trip to Montana?
I like late summer into early fall, around August and September. The weather is usually the most consistent, and the fishing is too. As you get closer to September, the crowds start to thin out, and you get the place back to yourself a little more.

What do you enjoy most about guiding here in Bozeman, Montana?
I’d say the variety of access. We’ve got a bunch of different rivers to fish right around here, and we get a constant stream of people coming in from all over the country and the world.

One of my favorite parts of guiding is taking people who have never done it before—or people who fish where they’re from—and showing them what it’s all about out here. It’s fun watching people, especially people who are really good at something else, figure it out over the course of a day or a week or however long they’re here.

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