Gallatin River, Montana
I was tired of waiting for the weather to warm up here in Maryland so I took off to Montana with my fishing gear to visit my friend of 40 years, Rod Jude.
The first night it snowed 5″. But, after a couple of days, and armed with fishing license, waders, my 6 wt Orvis fly rod, net, and both wet and dry flies from a local shop – I was able to get out onto the Gallatin River, which is right across the road from Rod’s house.
On the first day out the river was running clear and I began looking for holes where the trout would be congregating. For the 1 st hour I used a large #10 wet fly with smaller #20 midge about 8” behind with split shot higher up on the leader. Fished the deeper holes this way for about two hours with no luck.
Towards the afternoon I noticed a May fly hatch starting and Wow did the fishing change. There were hungry trout rising all over the place so I quickly changed out to a May fly imitation and began casting to individual rising brown trout.
During the remaining afternoon I was able to land and release 5 nice size brownies 10” to 14” with one big guy breaking my leader and getting away with my favorite fly so all in all it was an exciting afternoon. After another trip to the fly shop will be out on the river again for more Montana fishing with pictures and stories.
Brown Trout
Another Brown Trout
