Montana Angler Fly Fishing Blog

There are myriad ways people discover fly fishing. Learning how to catch a fish with a fly rod is another matter entirely. Some aspiring anglers are fortunate enough to have a family member, spouse or friend who is an avid flyfisher. Others explore the sport on their own, learning knots and casting...

Choosing the Best Fly Rod for Fishing Small Streams in Montana Many of our favorite Montana fly fishing rivers and creeks are small water, wade fishing options. The intimate setting and often eager fish make for a fun and exciting way to spend the day. The majority of these small streams are best...

Montana’s rich and varied wild trout fisheries offer anglers year round fishing opportunities. While it is difficult to elevate any one time of the year as the “best” time to fish the Big Sky state’s blue ribbon rivers, there is no doubt that the most anticipated time of year coincides with the...

Catching a great fish in a beautiful location is one of the joys of fly fishing. Looking back over a lifetime and remembering those moments spent with friends and family can enhance the experience. And there is no better way to bring back those memories than with a great photograph. But too often...

If there was a time of year that strikes despair and fear into any anglers heart it would be fishing rivers at their high water or runoff stage. A perception of doom and gloom can occur in such a time, but often opportunities to fish during runoff exist...just a little extra effort might be in order...

Crayfish, sometimes called crawdads or mud bugs, are large freshwater crustaceans that inhabit many of the rivers and streams of southwest Montana. Resembling a miniaturized Maine lobster, crawfish have long antennae, a pair of claws that can pinch hard enough to break skin, and a segmented tail...

For many fly anglers, late winter and early spring is a time of dreaming about fly fishing during warm summer days. For those who might want to get an earlier start on their fishing season, midges provide a great fly-fishing opportunity. Midge fishing can be productive as early as January on the...

“Oh, I'll never leave Montana, brother.” This is a line from Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It” that I have rehearsed and have assumed to be true since I moved here over 20 years ago. This February, I was lucky enough to get to spend two weeks fishing in the Aysen region of Chilean Patagonia...

As winter had tightened its grasp on Montana, I dreamed of warmer weather and hungry trout eating bushy dry flies in the Southern Hemisphere. I hung up my snowboard and put the cover over my snowmobile, and then geared up for warmer weather on my hosted trip to El Encuentro Lodge and Brook Trout...

April is one of the more exciting months of the year for Montana anglers. Although winter fishing is great...things really begin to get exciting when water temperatures begin rising in the spring. More and more water becomes accessible as ice shelves recede and snow banks melt off. One of the great...