News from Blue Ribbon Flies

Fishing Report
Weekly Conditions and Tips

As the seasons change, we will continue to do our best to provide a journal entry from some of our latest tying and fishing. We invite you to call and ask us what we've been up to if you get to wondering. We always have plenty of stories to tell.

Neil Courtis and Bucky were able to squeeze in a little winter fishing along the Madison. Neil, we're waiting for good news - keep us posted!!

16 December 2010
Blue Ribbon Flies Weekly Report

Craig Mathews

In June of 2009 Yvon Chouinard and I headed to Ovando, Montana on the banks of the Blackfoot River for a summit meeting of The Trust for Public Land and The Montana Nature Conservancy. You may recall I wrote about that meeting in a newsletter back then. Yvon and I were excited to be part of the program we hoped would protect over 1,000,000 acres of Montana wild lands forever shielding it from harmful development.

One of the attendees at that meeting, Hansjorg Wyss of Switzerland expressed his desire " to meet the founders of 1% for the Planet", hence our being invited. I know I speak for both Yvon and I when I say how excited we are this week to learn Hansjorg has supported the project with his donation of $35 million. This donation, coupled with money from the state of Montana as well as federal money, helped close the deal to purchase vast tracts of land in western Montana. Hansjorg has given all Montanans, as well as citizens around the world, a wonderful Christmas present with his gift. We look forward to working with him on future projects in and around Yellowstone country. Stay informed here!

Yesterday I left work at 2pm to fish the river. It was snowing very hard when I hit Duck Creek and at Hebgen Dam it was nearly a white-out. By the time I dropped down to $3.00 Bridge the snows subsided and winds died down. I'd brought along my fishing gear so wadered and rigged up near Lyon Bridge and worked upstream with a dual midge larvae combination - our new Muskrat Midge trailing a red Serendipity. It took several casts to hook-up.

The first fish was a whitefish, a nice fat healthy one that raced up and down river like a miniature steelhead! While some scoff at the whites I enjoy their spunk and Montana's Dept. of Fish, Wildlife and Parks fisheries biologists point to a big decline in whitefish numbers which is a of concern.. ..more on this as we learn more. But, after landing the whitefish, which took the red fly I worked upstream and took 2 fine rainbows on the Muskrat Midge. This is a new fly for us and will be featured as a "2012 New Fly Pattern" in our catalogue that should be in the mail to you sometime in the next 2-3 weeks.

For the next hour the fishing was hot and cold. One run might produce a couple rainbows, the next one looking even better than the previous surrendered nothing. This can be the case with winter fishing on most rivers as the fish seem to pod up moreso now than other times of the year. Nonetheless, I had a fine time and leaded home with a couple well-chewed flies to tape into my fishing journal.

One of our fly tyers, Josh, had great fishing on the Gallatin 2 days ago using small red midge larvae patterns too. Roger, my buddy from Bozeman, had phenomenal action yesterday on the lower Madison with General Managers and red bead Lucents.

No one seems to be taking any brown trout of late but this is common this time of the year. I have a friend who has fished below Hebgen Dam twice this week and he has taken but one brown trout while catching dozens of nice rainbows. He has found rising fish above Cabin Creek and between the roadway and island and has done well with a cream and peacock Griffiths Gnat Emerger when fish are coming up. During non-hatch times he has done fine with red beadhead Dips trailing unweighted original brown $3.00 Dips.

Check out our Youtube entry on tying our latest red sparkling $3.00 Dip which has been deadly lately. Too, remember to watch throughout the winter fly-tying months as we film a Youtube fly of the week each and every week!

Until next week, keep on tying and please give us a call or drop us an email for information on tying, hatches, fishing reports, weather conditions, or if you just gotta talk to someone in Yellowstone! We hope to hear from you soon!

Watch us tie the Bloody Midge....