April Fly Fishing in Montana - The Clark Fork

Jake Hensley with a cutthroat from The Clark Fork in Montana

 

Sometimes in life, the stars line up against our fishing plans, and that has been the case for me since early fall.  The good news, that’s in the past.  Business has been great, and that’s something we are grateful for, but sometimes we need to wet a line to decompress.  I set out to one of our favorite places, Missoula, Montana for some fishing and to see our daughter.  My initial flight from Des Moines to Denver was delayed, I missed my connection, and ended up spending the night in Denver.  The next flight from Denver to Missoula didn't land until 1:30 the next day, so it looked like I would miss an entire day of fishing.  I’m lucky to have a good friend and fishing guide, Jake Hensley, AKA @missoulaflyguy, who picked me up a the airport and we ended up with a solid partial day on the Clark Fork right outside of town.  We ended up getting blown off the river while casting for pike in the early evening due to some crazy wind, but it was still a great day.

 

 

The next day I woke up early and had a killer breakfast at my favorite hotel in Missoula, The DoubleTree.  The photo below is the view from my room, so I really don‘t need to explain why we love this hotel.

 

 

Jake picked me up at The DoubleTree around 9:00 am, and we headed out of town towards Superior.  The plan was to fish mouths of tributaries in the morning, and then knock out some killer holes in the afternoon.  Jake’s plan, as usual was spot on. 

 

 

The gear for the trip, and my standard arsenal for fishing with Jake in Montana includes four combos.  Two packable El Jefe Combos in six and eight weight, and two four section El Jefe Combos in six and eight weight.  I always bring back up fly rods, because you never know what could go wrong.  I like bringing both our packable combos out and our four section rods.  It’s fun testing how great the packable rods fish next to four section rods.  I do enjoy handing one to Jake and asking him if he can tell if it’s four or six sections.  Just a little game I play, since I heard for the first several years that “no one wanted six section rods because they don’t cast well.”  That was until Fly Fisherman Magazine got ahold of our rods And called them “The Boss of Packable Fly Rods.”

 

 

We would connect with several trout below the mouth of these small tributaries or creeks flowing into The Clark Fork.  We fished stonefly patterns, affectionately called “The Turd,” squirmy worms.  Jake has a solid theory on flies for fishing Montana rivers, he fishes LARGE flies.  He believes, and his success would show he’s spot on, that fish will not go out of their way to eat a tiny fly.  They will eat one if it flows right to them, but they would never swim three feet to eat one.  I agree, and think this knowledge is true other locations as well.  A fish will swim a distance for a good meal.  It’s imperative that the fly imitates actual food though.

 

 

The morning was solid, but the afternoon was incredible.  We hit a sweet hole that produced ten to fifteen fish, including several amazingly colored cutthroat trout.  These fish had such amazing colors.  We got a couple at the twenty inch mark, but didn't hook into anything significant.  The fish below had amazing colors and put on a heck of a battle.  

 

 

The big lesson of the day was to fish larger flies with confidence, if larger food is in the water.  The Clark Fork does produce some large stoneflies, so big stoneflies can pretty much always be fished below the surface or in the form of a Chubby.

 

 

Today was a fun day, but tomorrow we would be fishing The Blackfoot.  It’s been a few years since I’ve been up there, the scenery is amazing, and I was very excited.  Stay tuned!

 

 

Until next time, tight lines my friends!

Jeff