Big Hole River 488 cfs
A fisherman from Helena stopped by the shop this morning as I was getting it ready to open and asked if he could get a shuttle. Actually he called earlier in the morning and it was kind of a wake up call to get things going at the shop. At first he wanted to go way down river and I suggested maybe a bit upstream would be better, simple reason is more fish. He said he was going to use streamers and nymphs and hope for the best. I told him to try a skwala pattern and he looked at me as if I was kidding. Well he called about an hour ago and said he tried a skwala about 2:30 in the afternoon just for the hell of it and had great results. It worked til about 4:00 and then they just quit on top. That’s about when the temp. dropped. From then on using a streamer with slow strips worked well. The biggest fish he caught were in the 17 to 18 inch range but he caught quite a few. I’ll take those 18 inchers all day. I just happen to have received four new skwala patterns yesterday. Forecast is for unsettled weather for the next five days. The river is rising but very slowly and should have no effect on the fishing.