Kingfisher Flyshop’s Five-River Fishing Report

By The Kingfisher Fly Shop, 5-17-06

Bitterroot

5/17/2006

REPORTS: It's big and dirty like Bodacious!! Your chances of success up here are Bodacious like, too, only you won't stand the chance of winning a $50,000 bounty. It's blown X 10!

Blackfoot

05/17/2006

REPORTS: The Blackfoot has you in an inescapable fish bar and it's WAY time for you to tap out! You lose!

Clark Fork

5/17/2006

REPORTS: Gone like 1/2 priced Spam at Wal-Mart. Don't expect much from this river for quite some time. It's runoff you know.

Stop into The Kingfisher, The River Otter, Grizzly Hackle, or The Missoulian Angler and sign the list in support of FWP pursuing a boat access at Erskine or some point in between Harper's Bridge and Petty Creek. It's time to get this almost inaccessible 24 miles of river open to public float use. If you can't get into any of the shops, call or e-mail FWP and let them know how you feel. (406) 542-5500/fwprg22@mt.gov

Missouri

5/17/2006

REPORTS: There will probably be some sporadic cloud cover off and on today which will definitely help both your dryfly and nymphing prospects. The upper floats continue to fish the best for us over here and tandem nymph rigs that include tiny red patterns have generally been the most effective. There has been some dryfly action, periodiocally, with both caddis and smaller mayfly patterns. We smacked our first fatty over here on a hopper the other day as well. The streamer action continues to be so-so, but it has been giving us some VERY nice fish when we have hooked up. Flows are down a bit below Holter dam and hanging right at about 6320 cfs with a water temp of 50. The flow below Eagle Creek on the Smith is 615 and rising - but fairly slowly so far.

Rock Creek

5/17/2006

REPORTS: It's almost 2,000 cfs down by Clinton this morning. Not good. Slinging junk from a boat is your only option river wide today. You'll tag some fish, but it won't be amazing. The big bugs (salmonflies) are JUST getting going. Once they take off for real, you can expect mid runoff fishing up here. [End of article]