Posts by Anthony VonRuden

Well, runoff is here.  There are a few areas that you can find clean water around Missoula but options are limited. Great fishing is out there to be had if you don’t mind driving.  The Missouri River is a great option in May as many rainbows are returning from their spawning grounds right at about […]

Floating through the Blackfoot and Clark Fork Confluence For the first time ever we launched a boat at Turah and floated down the new river channel and through the confluence of the Blackfoot and the Clark Fork Rivers.  This stretch of river has been closed for years while Milltown Dam was removed and the historic […]

The Missoula area rivers are spiking at the moment from those sunny warm days we just had.  One would think that this is the beginning of run off but if you look at the forecast, they say it will cool back down starting today with pretty cold temps at night.  This could create one more window of […]

The current combination of water temps and clarity have given up some really good dry fly fishing for us lately.  There are Grey Drakes and Skwalas buzzing around still but the Caddis have now taken over.  Yesterday the fish were keyed in on the Caddis and we fished a single size 12 imitation almost the entire day with […]

There are lots of different insects hatching now on the Missoula area rivers keeping fish looking up and dry flies an effective option.  The March Browns/Grey Drakes are here in full force.  Skwalas are still around, and yesterday we saw our first Mother’s Day Caddis of the year.   The next week should give us a great window of fishing […]

Fish are still eating dry flies!  I spent the last few days in the boat fishing with Ric Jones and Brad Bennett, both from Washington.  Ric has been fly fishing the Missoula area since the 90’s and brings the Catchin Hogs group to the Kingfisher every Fall.  He makes it out to Missoula a few times a year and I […]

The cooler weather has dropped the flows in the Missoula area and the fish have responded.  The dry fly fishing on the Bitterroot is pretty good these days.  The Skwala dry fly was the most effective bug for us yesterday and we saw some March Browns and a few Baetis and Midges flying around in the afternoon.  “Cheddar’s” boat fished streamers all day and […]

Missoula River Conditions The Missoula area rivers have seen an increase in flow over the last week from snow melt.  We are about to turn the corner tomorrow or the next day as the weather is cooling back down.   This time of year our rivers recover quickly from pushes of water caused by snowmelt and […]