Tricos, Caddis and PMDs, Oh My!
The Missouri river in Montana is one of the top destinations in America for fly fishers who prefer the art of the dry fly over chucking bobbers and lead. I first visited “the Big Mo” in 2018, the year that I spent trying to hit all of the big name waters in Montana, and some of the lesser known ones. I had never attempted to take on the trico hatch, as my skills with the fly rod at that point still had me looking for easy fish, you know, ones that will eat big fluffy foam flies. Chubby Chernobyls, Stimulators, hoppers… easy to see stuff.
The Mo is known for its late summer trico hatch, and in 2018 I showed up in mid-August, amazed by what I took to be huge amounts of bugs on the water. Little did I know how heavy a hatch could actually be, huge clouds of trico spinners blanketing everything.
That time on the river above Craig, at the Wolf Creek access, my first sight of the river was of big noses rising all up and down the bank, right alongside the boat ramp! I was pretty excited and tied on a big Griffith’s Gnat for a sighter fly and then a trico spinner tied off the back of the Gnat. My pictures seem to illustrate that I was unsuccessful at getting a fish to eat that day…
A couple of days later, I headed up the road to the put-in by the dam, and found a seam that was absolutely boiling with trout gulping down spent tricos as they collected at the current’s edge. The fish were eating frequently enough that it wasn’t necessary to try and feed an individual, as long as you got the fly in the seam, it would get ate sooner or later!
Those fish near the dam were often pretty beat up looking, and someone told me that they had been washed down the face of the dam at high water. Weird that they stick close to the dam… maybe they expect to be able to get back into the lake someday?
I think that in 2018 I almost never tied on any pattern other than a trico of one flavor or another. There was one evening that I found what I thought was a Pale Morning Dun spinner floating along, and a basic Parachute Adams fooled a fish or two. On my last day on the river that year, I walked across the bridge from the Craig FAS that I was camped at to fish a seam next to the bank. You could watch from the bridge as four or five big rainbows methodically ate spinners from the current seam. Possibly the most frequently fished-to fish in the whole river.
I snuck up from below them, under the bridge, and began trying to feed the biggest nose. Well, it’s hard to tell if your bug was the one that got ate or not, so sometimes you have to guess and just set the hook on any likely rise. I did that, and was rewarded with a very large bend in the rod as the tank I had hooked into fled downstream. It peeled line off my reel like few trout ever had done, and I had to start running downstream, trying not to fall face first into the slippery rock rip-rap under the bridge.
I finally got the fish slowed down and near the net, when I realized why it was pulling so hard… I’d foul hooked it right in the tail! There’s no turning a fish that’s hooked in the tail. Especially not a 22″ Missouri River rainbow!
In 2023, I arrived in mid-July and got to experience smorgasbord of hatches. The tricos were there, but not quite in huge clouds yet. There was a healthy caddis hatch that came off around sunset, and they were good sized bugs, like a 16, easy to see. The tricos I tied this time around were on 20 and 22 hooks, which are definitely NOT easy to pick out on the water when there are a million bugs floating downstream.
Somewhat to my surprise though, the bug of the week was a PMD variant of one sort or another. I had bought some flies from each of the four fly shops in Craig, and had great success with a Galloup’s Found Link in PMD colors. A classic rusty spinner was also a winner on my float downstream. Oh yeah, I bought a pontoon boat last year, and for the first time took it on a self-shuttled float down the Mo’. I drove the motorhome up to the dam with the boat, and left the motorcycle at the Craig campsite for the return trip. It was great!
I mostly stalked fish on foot though, as access is really great between the dam and Craig. There is one spot below the road at the Lone Tree access that had tons of fish eating off the top every time I visited. There is a big back-eddy where the bugs accumulate over a deep hole, and though it can be tough to cast far enough with the steep hill at your back, the fish also line up five feet from the bank upstream of the back eddy. I had one very memorable eat a foot from the bank, where several fish were sheltered under the mat of bugs.
The town of Craig is about 45 minutes from Helena, and there isn’t much opportunity to buy anything but fly-related gear in town, so come for your stay fully stocked up. I’ve camped at the FAS in town, which is great if you can get a spot. I expect that it’s always full on weekends in the Summer, but I’ve found room when I arrived mid week.
The Wolf Creek access has a few spots, but it has been paved since I first visited and all the spots are badly off level. There is a BLM campsite at the foot of the dam, but I’ve never found an open spot there, and was unable to find the online reservation page for it.
Do you know any other great placed to camp along the river? Share your Big Mo’ experience in the comments below!
Further Reading Links…
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