Fly Fishing Scenes, August in Montana

I started the month down on the Crow Reservation, on the Bighorn river below Yellowtail dam. Cottonwood camp was the base for the first few nights, then I moved to the Bighorn access point downstream. A nasty thunderstorm blew in and threatened the huge tree I was parked under, so I beat feet up to the campsite right below the dam, snatching the last open spot on a Friday afternoon.

(click any image for larger versions and captions)

I spent the last week of July and the first days of August on the Bighorn river.

I was a little early for the PMD hatch, but the fish started looking up for them on August 1.

This was the first one to eat my dry fly, a Quigley-style cripple pattern

August 1 was a perfect morning on the river, a number of great eats right here in this slick above the Bighorn access.

The Quigley cripple PMD... easy to see, stout hook for big fish.

A lovely evening under a big cottonwood at the Bighorn access.

A stretch of water up by the Three Mile access had fish eating caddis in the evening.

I had a family event to get to on the opposite corner of the state for the second week of August, up by Glacier National Park in Big Sky, and I took a couple of leisurely days to get there. I stopped overnight at a spot on the Yellowstone river near Big Timber, and spent a couple of hours swinging flies down and across with my two-hander, but it was a fruitless effort.

From a turnout on the Going to the Sun Road, Glacier National Park

After Big Sky, I headed over to the Missouri River below Holter Dam, and grabbed a spot for the Outlaw at the Craig FAS. I really missed on the timing, because I should have gone to the Mo earlier, when I was on the Bighorn, and hit the Bighorn later! All the main hatches were essentially finished when I got to Craig, and I only netted one fish in 6 days. I spent far too much time trying to fool the big rainbows gulping tricos in an eddy up by the dam, where I’d always scored on previous visits, but they weren’t having it in 2025. July is the prime time to visit Craig.

A straightened PMD sighter fly that looks to have stabbed a fish in the flank, with some scales attached.

I decided to split back down south to Hebgen reservoir, and was lucky to find my choice spot on the South Fork arm unoccupied. The worry was, would my new motorhome make it down the dirt track to the waterfront spot? It is much lower to the road that the old Funmover was.

I got in to my spot without dragging, but I dug the door step into the dirt on the way out. Was expected!

Hebgen was excellent, not phenomenal, but plenty good. I come here for the callibaetis dry fly action, and they did not disappoint. I wrote a bit about it not long ago.