Yes, there are BIG rainbows in the Missouri River! No, not our Missouri river here in the state of Missouri but the beginning of the Missouri river in Montana. We had the opportunity to fly fish the Missouri River near Craig, Montana, just below the Holter Lake Dam. And boy, what a great trip it was!
Our longtime member (2008) Tim Graham, who moved to Colorado several years ago, set up a trip and invited Jim Craig, Glenn Haake and me (Kenny Klimes) to join him. Tim has set up several trips and all have been first class with big trout caught. This trip was no exception. Tim put the trip together – rented the cabin on the Missouri River, bought the food, and picked us up in Bozeman, Montana. Once Jim, Glenn and I arrived in Bozeman we met up with Tim and headed north to Craig, Montana. Of course, before stopping at the liquor store for additional supplies. Craig is a tiny town with at least four fly shops, a couple of restaurants and several small lodges to hold fly fishers for several days to a week. Our VRBO overlooked the Missouri River with an unbelievable view. We arrived in the late afternoon on Saturday, May 17th as we prepared to set up our gear to fish the next day (Sunday, May 18th).
I won’t bore you with our day-by-day activity of what we did and what we caught. The pictures below will do that. But I will try to catch the essence of the trip for you. This way you too can travel to Craig and enjoy the beautiful Mighty MO. And, if you decide to head to Craig, Montana contact Tim to find the VRBO that he found on the Mighty MO.
Our days would start at 6:30am (except for Glenn who had a tendency to get up much earlier than the rest). Coffee was usually ready early for those that would partake. Breakfast was made by Jim, Glenn or Tim as I just enjoyed the relaxing environment of the whole experience. Usually Jim would make eggs, bacon, bagel sandwiches for breakfast. After breakfast we would head down to the attached garage where our fly-fishing gear was waiting. Waders and boots on, rods put together, wading staffs and vests put in the car. We spent most of the fishing in one of two areas that we found most successful. We waded the entire trip but deduced that we would have caught many more fish if we would have floated the Missouri. The Missouri was flowing at a rate of 5200cfs – 5800cfs the entire week. This is normal for this area. Which, as you know, makes it difficult to drift nymphs and scuds. Or fish dry flies. You could “swing” streamers (which did work for us at times), but the swift current would make each cast quickly end. But we did figure it out. Funny, one day we thought we had the technique that would work and the next day it would change. As we would say in the U.S. Air Force – “Flexibility is the Key to Air Power!” We became flexible each day.
We would fish (which I will talk about more later) in the morning, head to our VRBO for lunch and a nap, and get back on the water around 2pm until 6pm. After our day of fly fishing, we would come back to the VRBO and enjoy a dinner planned by Tim and usually prepared by Master Chef Glenn. Pasta, Steaks, Sloppy Joes, etc. were on the menu for our enjoyment. Our course, we enjoyed some adult beverages as we waited for our meal to arrive.
Now let’s talk about the fly fishing. Our first day we found a “slower” flow sitting at the end of an island which we found out later at a fly shop was a “secret” location for big trout. We found this to be true. I’ll say it here and only once, we were shocked by the size of every rainbow we caught; the smallest were 16 inches with the biggest 24 inches. I would say the average size of most of the trout caught were in the 18” – 19” range. They fought extremely hard, and the jumps were spectacular. We lost three times as many as we put in the net – frustrating but heart throbbing. We heard a lot of “Oh’s”, and a few “dams” yelled out with each fish lost.
We threw olive Mo-hair leeches that seemed to be the ticket the first two days. The fly shops were confused somewhat when we showed up buying more of them. But as fishing would go we needed to change flies to the “want” of the trout. In the middle of the trip, we started to see BWO hatches so we figured out they might want something small – bang, tiny size 20/22 RS2s caught, yes, 18 – 20-inch rainbows! The final two days, if you could get a good drift, sow bugs (hair-of-the-dog flies or Walt’s worm flies) were the ticket. Our last days produced some big and beautiful rainbows. No one caught a brown trout the whole trip, but the rainbows were exceptionally beautiful.
If I would go back to the area again, I would set aside a few days to float with a guide. Floating gives you the opportunity to cover more water and catch more trout. But the ability to wade gave us the chance to fish side by side and exchange the techniques that were working for each of us.
I must give shout outs to my brothers Tim, Glenn and Jim for taking good care of me during this trip. They took charge and I truly didn’t have much to do but fish (and write this trip report)! Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our trip home. Tim, living in Colorado, left early Saturday morning (5am) to drive home to Windsor, Colorado, which was about a 12-hour drive. Glenn, Jim and I had the easy trip home as we were to drive to Bozeman (a 2-hour drive to the south), catch a short flight to Denver and then on the St Louis. We would beat Tim home and be in bed before him. But not so fast as storms hit Denver hard by our flight time. We were delayed in Bozeman for six hours and when we finally were released had our Denver to STL flight cancelled. I have to give a shout out to the awesome Southwest Airlines crew that we had. We were delayed in Bozeman for six hours, that included about three hours sitting on the plane. In a move some of us have never seen before, the SWA captain ordered Domino’s pizzas for us. They were delivered to the plane just as we were departing for Denver. The awesome flight attendants served the pizza while we were in route. The three of us basically got one of the last hotel rooms available in Denver (reservations made before we departed Bozeman) and when we reached Denver airport we were greeted by hundreds of stranded passengers. We headed straight to the hotel, tried to sleep six hours before we had to catch our Sunday morning flight to STL. We made the flight and arrived in STL a day late (around noon) and put another awesome trip in the books.
