Fishing Report: April 23, 2025

April started out a little warm, but has returnd to typical spring weather including snow, rain, and plenty of cold nights.

I kicked off the season floating with Lia and Travis on the lower Big Hole (Melrose to Browns) last wednesday, 4/16. The cold front was still moving and the weather was fantastic, low 70's. We dedicated the float to catching fish on skwalla patterns. The beginning of the float was slow with only 1 or 2 eats on top, but in the heat of the afternoon the fish finally started looking up. We threw a few different patterns but in the end it turned out to be the copper chubby, size 14, that brought the fish to the boat.

On Friday, 4/18, I guided my first guide trip of the season with some good friends/clients/spin doggers from LV (single hooks only!!). We started on the Madison River, Ruby to Varney, with temps somewhere around 20F, 4 inches of snow on the ground, and the water clear as could be. The morning was spent de-icing rods, hands, oars, and anchor rope. The sun did come out around 1, and the water warmed up enough to get a few fish to start chasing the yozuri. Though we did start seeing fish chasing, they were very slow on the eat, and often followed right to the oar before slowly swimming away. We did land 4 fish, which I would call a win given the conditions. The best patterns were olive, gold, and very shiny streamers.

The next day, 4/19, was much warmer. We decided to change it up and see what was going on on the Jefferson River (Kuntz to Cardwell). The temps were mid 40's with 12 inches of viz and the wind was at our back. We fished deep and slow with light colors (white, yellow) and managed to pull off a decent day, landing 8-10 fish. All of the takes were in deep holes and back eddy's. I did notice a few march browns flying around and saw a couple eats on top but they were too sporadic to justify switching to dry flies. Hopefully the hatch will pick up and the water will clear a little bit, getting those fish to start looking up more consistently.

The third day, 4/20, we headed back to my neck of the woods and fished the Beaverhead. The upper river is still closed but Pipe Organ to Barretts was in good shape. Again we fished plugs, blue/gold and gold/white. The water is very low and the raft still scraped and kicked dirt all the way. Regardless the fishing was much better as was the weather. We landed a couple nice browns and capped off the trip with a great day.

I have a couple days on the calendar for next week, and I will give updates on those next week. The Great Divide crew will be launching on th Smith River on May 2 for a Cinco de Mayo throw down. We always enjoy spending time with our crew before the busy season.

I want to emphasize that we are NOT going out of business. Lia and I chose to close the fly shop this season so that she and I can focus on our respective outfitting businesses. We are trying to get a shuttle business set up with the locals in the valley, and will keep everyone posted on our progress. We hope to be open and running next year as long as the Big Hole water situation improves.