Beaverhead River Fishing Report
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
MARCH 6, 7, AND 8
*Report Courtesy of longtime TLA supporter and fisherman Ed Wilson
Fighting a good Brown on the Beaverhead River above Barretts.
I spent three great late winter days on the Beaverhead River March 6-8. On March 6, and 7, I could find no fishing pal so I walked into one of the public fishing accesses below Pipe Organ Bridge. The State of Montana provides great access to its rivers which makes the walk in thing pretty easy. On these two days I fished a stretch of the river no more than a half mile long and caught fish steadily from noon until the sun dropped below the mountains. Temperature was in the high 40’s and 50’s, the sun was bright, and hatches of midges came off pretty regularly early afternoon, which was when the fish were most active. There was minimal wind so if felt warmer than the actual temperature and I was comfortable with only a fleece pullover. Most of the fish were taking a size18 flash back, and soft hackle flies like the magic red ass. The largest fish was a nice brown that ate a yellow cone head streamer. I caught mostly brown trout in the 12 – 14 inch range. The few rainbows I hooked up were about the same size but were acrobatic nuts displaying multiple jumps and going generally crazy. All of the fish were good, strong fighters but the “bows” had a real attitude for some reason. Water clarity was perfect and the flow is low so it is easy to cross the river and get to the places you always wanted to get to.
On March 8, we launched our two man pontoon boat at Grasshopper Creek and floated to Barretts. The water has more color below Grasshopper which is typical for this time of year as the snow melt progresses. Fishing was good, however, and we caught a number of nice brown trout on size 18 to 20 lightning bugs and soft hackles in pink and red. Fishing activity was a lot like the prior two days except we covered a lot more water. We saw one other fisherman, our friend Larry who we met in January at the Charlotte N.C. show and who works for Dave Scadden boats out of Utah. Our pontoon boats are Scadden’s so it was quite a coincidence seeing Larry on our river, who had stopped to fish at the Grasshopper Creek public access on his way home from a show in Washington. So what does a guy that sells fly fishing boats do on his day off…..fish, of course?
Late winter fishing in Montana is pretty special.
