Posts by Anthony VonRuden

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 […]

The Bitterroot has been pretty solid over the last week.   The Skwala has been getting it done for the most part but we are starting to see more Mayflies hatching.  We saw a fair number of Blue Wing Olives and a couple of March Browns yesterday on the Root.   The fishing was kind of […]

We fished the Bitterroot again yesterday and had surprisingly good fishing.  The weather was inconsistent for us but the fish didn’t seem to mind.  We fished dry flies all afternoon and had steady action fishing the Skwala in many different variations.  We also saw a push of March Browns in a few areas of the […]

Fish are being caught on dry flies these days on the Bitterroot but the dry fly fishing has been overall kind of spotty.  Last weeks warm weather got the Root right on the verge and produced some good days of fishing.  The last few days have been cold, windy, and unsettled but there was enough […]

Missoula Fishing Report We hit the river Saturday and saw our first Skwala of the year.  The fish didn’t seem to be totally keyed in on the dry fly yet but seeing the big bug means the beginning of our 2013 dry fly season has officially begun.  The fishing will only get better over the […]

We have made it through February which means that dry fly fishing is about here on the Bitterroot River.  Historically about March 15th is when the fish on the Bitterroot really start to key in on the Skwala Stonefly.  Given our current conditions I would say we are on pace for an average start meaning […]

We spent a couple of days in Idaho fly fishing on the clearwater river for steelhead.  The south fork is still running at 300 cfs and the word around Kooskia is that it won’t fish well until the water bumps up.  We fished the main river and managed to catch a few.  Its a fun fishing […]