Fishing on the rivers will get better every day now as the river flows approach the normal for this time of the year. Rock Creek where the famous salmon fly hatch has been in progress for a couple of weeks should be fishing excellent now. Anglers fishing by boat need to be aware of some hazards on the Creek. Last Friday John from Rock Creek Fisherman’s Mercantile took some pictures of the new log jam formations at what is commonly called the “War Zone” below the Upper Fire Ring and Siria Campground, at approximately mile marker 27. “It looks really sketchy in a couple different spots this year, and even portaging would be extremely difficult. My advice would be to avoid doing a float trip through this area, and even portaging looks to be difficult here this year”, he posted on their web site rcmerc.com. Carolyn and John from the “Merc” always have the current river and fishing conditions for Rock Creek and they are just a phone call away 406-825-6440 or just stop in and get the latest on your way fishing.
The fishing on the Missouri River below Holter Dam should be excellent this week. The river flows of the Missouri River are down to 4900 cubic feet per second (cfs) as they are now holding back water to fill Canyon Ferry Reservoir up river. This stretch of river on the Missouri River has been running at 8,000 cfs for most of spring so wading and drift boat fly fishers should enjoy excellent fishing now.
The walleye fishing on Canyon Ferry Reservoir should also start to be more consistent now with the water flowing into the reservoir from the Missouri river at normal flows for this time of the year.
Largemouth bass fishing on Ninepipes has been good. Brandt Hamernick from Missoula recently caught some nice fish while fishing there recently. “The bass fishing has also been good on Kicking Horse and Pablo Reservoir”, reported Bill Brown from Bob Wards in Missoula.
Chancy Jescke from Snappys in Kalispell reported that the perch fishing on Lake Mary Ronan has picked up. Fishing in 5-10 feet of water using a night crawler has been working and the perch are pretty good size.
Ladd Knotek from FWP told me that kokanee fishing `should be pretty good on Salmon Lake this year. “There is a good population of salmon up to 11 inches in the lake and nobody seems to be fishing for them”, he said. Placid Lake which is nearby also has been good for kokanee fishing this spring.
71 teams competed in the Rock Creek Walleye tourney on Fort Peck last weekend, the most in years. The winning team from Billings, Doug Quast and Cody Martinez had a top weight of 41.52 pounds. The weight however was less than half the weight that it took to win the tournament last year. “The big fish were spread out this year”, said Bill from Rock Creek Marina.
(Written by the Captain)
