Montana has seasonal commitment issues. We’re nearing the end of our spring season however the warm days have been few and far between. Overall, that’s a great thing for our drainage and the dry fly fishing (just check out the brown above that Aaron Bonsall put in the net yesterday!). The errant winter weather days helped to quickly calm the two big bumps in CFS this spring. The consistent low nighttime temps have helped to stabilize our water and keep us in great shape as we move past the halfway mark in April.
Warm temperatures over Easter weekend and again just last weekend moved some of our snow pack and bumped the rivers for the first time this year. Much of the Blackfoot and upper Clark Fork area had substantial shelf ice and snowy banks still waiting to clear by April 9th, so once we finally had a blue bird sunny day to enjoy, all of our local rivers saw significant bumps. Both the Blackfoot and Clark Fork turned muddy and went out of shape from the first big rising waters of the season, with all of that snow and ice taking a bit of dirt with it as it melted.
The Bitterroot area had seen some warmer temperatures, and had already melted off its low elevation snow. So, while the warm temperatures caused some runoff, the Bitterroot was able to stay in shape even with the rising flows. Since then, the Blackfoot and Clark Fork have cleared, and all three of our home rivers are fishing well as we look ahead to cool temperatures through the end of April. As always, the longer our local water stays in shape the better the dry fly fishing gets! Warmer water temps get both the fish and the bugs moving, and as the skwala hatch works its way downstream into the Clark Fork the hatch grows to 10x what it was on the Bitterroot due to the habitat.
Our conditions continue to improve in our ten-day projected forecast, and we expect good to excellent dry fly fishing to close out April. We have guides available April 28th and later and hope to share the spring dry fly fun with you this season or next!
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