Big Hole River 407 cfs–Maidenrock, 258 cfs Melrose
Fishing the trico hatch for the last couple weeks has been kind of spotty. Saturday how ever it was as good as it could possibly get. Dave G. was in the boat with me and he only wanted a short half day trip. Around 10 am we started to see the first pod feeding. We were in a stetch of river that was wide shallow and slow. Dave said at first he thought they were white fish and I said I didn’t think so. Whitey’s make that telltale splasy rise and these were swirling and lots of them. He drifted the fly down to them and a fat hot 16 inch rainbow gulped it. For the next 2 hours it was pod after pod and the fish were really on. We got a couple whitey’s when we were in deeper water but most of them were hot bows from 12 to 17 inches and all in about a foot of water.
I got up this morning about 6 and did a double take when I looked out the window. All was white with a couple inches of snow. I immediately turned around and crawled back into bed. By now the snow has melted here in the valley’s with a fiorecast of mixed rain and snow for the rest of the day. All this moisture has brought the river up about a 100 cfs at Maidenrock and still rising. This should dispell any rumors about the river closing. The rest of the day I’ll be busy whippin out some buggers as these are the ideal conditions for them. Temps are forecast to be back in the 60’s tomorrow and the next day.