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Top 5 2011 Montana Fishing Highlights

Montana Fly Fishing Tripschoose All Inclusive Inset

Montana fly fishing is never boring, in fact the 2011 season was exceptionally exciting.  We thought we’d reminisce on some of the more notable highlights:

#5 – This one is our personal favorite – us getting to fish with fun people!  This might seem a bit sentimental, but we have to start this list off with the quality of people that we fished with last season.  Over the past 10 years we’ve meet some exceptionally great people and continued to develop long lasting relationships with others, and we look forward to it again in 2012.

#4 – PMD mania.  DePuy & Armstrong Spring Creeks had some fantastic hatches this season and this past July was exceptionally good.  Guide Eric and client Kris were able to capitalize with a remarkable 5 fish over 17″ in a few short hours.  They also had a shot a fish well over the 21″ mark but were unable to coax him to the fly.  I guess we’ll have to save that highlight for 2012.

#3 – Salmon flies on the Madison.  We had a two boat crew on a spectacular day from Lyon’s to Ruby.  Guides Eric and Zach saw more salmon fly dry eats in one day than in the past 4 years combined.  What made it especially memorable is that one of our clients has degenerating eye disease that will make it unlikely he’ll ever see a fish eat his fly again.  Certainly a sad condition we are just happy that he’ll remember that day for the rest of his life.

#2 – Fishing the Missouri River at 22,000 cfs.  No one has ever guided (our research) this river at that level.  Despite the high water the fishing was absolutely amazing.  Typical days were 20 – 40 fish averaging 18 inches.  Simply incredible!

Drum roll please…

#1 – Without a doubt was the record setting flows on the Yellowstone River.  The Yellowstone River peaked in early July (a month later than usual) at a record setting 38,000 cfs which equates to 284,000 gallons of water going by every second – a once in a lifetime sight!  While this definitely screwed up the fishing on the Yellowstone River until early August it was cool to see.  Check out this video take from Carter’s Bridge just south of Livingston.  [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/35069048[/vimeo]

 

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