One of the renowned blue ribbon trout fishing rivers in Montana, made famous by Norman Mclean’s “A River Runs Through It” the Blackfoot River begins its journey at the continental divide near Lincoln, MT. The river flows through a variety of terrain, for 130 miles until draining into the Clark Fork just upstream from Missoula, MT. There are many access sites to the Blackfoot River off of Highway 200. The river flows through National forest land upstream of Lincoln, providing excellent public access.
Best Fly: X-Stimulator #10 or 12
Water Conditions: Good
Weather Conditions: 70
Floated or Waded: waded
Section of Water Fished: Upper
Found good fishing last night above Bonner on #10 x stimulators. I think they were eating for a spruce moth.
Best Fly: Purple Haze
Water Conditions: Tuber Hatch
Weather Conditions: Hot
Floated or Waded: floated
Section of Water Fished: Lower
Holy Bikini Hatch…I would fish somewhere else for a while or go early or late. The inertubers are thick.
Best Fly: Black Bunny
Water Conditions: Good
Weather Conditions: Cool
Floated or Waded: floated
Section of Water Fished: Harry Morgan down
We had clients staying in Seely Lake all weekend for the Holiday. We fished them on the Blackfoot for 3 days (Fri-Sun). The North Fork is gin clear and the fish up there will pound dries. Mostly caddis as I think they have seen too many big bugs. The Middle Fork is slightly blown but we did well. The rig we used was a short leader 5ft under an indicator running black streamers right on the bank. Make sure to eat dinner at Trixies if you fish the foot.
Best Fly: Rubber Leg Black Bugger
Water Conditions: Up a little
Weather Conditions: Thunderboomers & Sunny
Floated or Waded: floated
Section of Water Fished: North Fork Down
Fished yesterday all day out of our 13foot otter raft with front and rear casting decks. The streamer fishing was excellent as cloud cover was around. Before we took off we found lots of fish sipping elk hair caddis and had a blast .5 miles above the boat ramp catching big browns & rainbows on dries after 7pm.
Best Fly: Last day Black & Gold Streamers
Water Conditions: High but Clear
Weather Conditions: Sunny for 2 days, 1 day overcast
Floated or Waded: floated
Section of Water Fished: Blackfoot-3 Sections near Ovando
I just fished for three days with the Blue Damsel Lodge. The lodge experience was excellent. The people, the food, the guides and the fishing were superb. We floated the Blackfoot everyday. A new section every day, only overlapped 2 miles. The first two days were sunny and the fish were aggressively taking adult salmon fly patterns. We landed a lot of nice cuttbows, browns and some guys even hooked into bull trout. Peter Bring is a really good guide. I would recommend Peter to anyone fishing the Missoula area. His number is 406-544-7336.
The last day Peter had us fishing streamers 5 feet under a strike indicator. It was really effective. We dropped the streamer with a black rubber leg.
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