Great Falls Fishing Report 9.15.2017
Labor Day has come and gone. School is back in session. Camo is selling fast. Is anybody fishing? Someone is always fishing. When it’s not me, I often want to be that someone, especially as we move into the fall. With school in session and hunting seasons drawing sportsman from the river, it’s a great time to enjoy a river day.
Right now, we are in transition. Recently we've been carrying on with hot summer days and it did not seem like it would ever change. What a difference a day makes. Wednesday, it was 80 something and I was on the water wearing flip flops and a Simms Stone Cold shirt. Thursday morning, I was ensconced in GORE-TEX for the first time since May. It was 43 degrees with pouring down rain and I was loving it. With good gear, there are no bad days. Regardless of the daily high temps, the warming effects of the sun are waning. Fall is inevitable and it seems to finally be here.
Nymphing has been good and it will progressively get even better. Mornings in the Dam to Wolf Creek Bridge reach are always a strong bet. Zebras, tiny Mayflies, Scuds, Sow Bugs and even Worms are the usual fare. It’s nice to know that on any given day, you can follow this recipe for success.
If you want a little more spice, the entire river is waiting. The weeds are still a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Anglers willing to put up with them are drifting and wading lower reaches of the river and finding good success. Do you fish the Zirdle?
Until we get a few frosts, terrestrials will remain in play and anglers will keep having fun plopping the big bugs down on the water. Hoppers are always a favorable choice and the reports I’ve had suggest fish are paying even more attention to them now than they were a few weeks back.
I know some anglers are trailing smaller beetles or ants behind their hopper. I also know some are fishing their beetles or ants solo. If you know where fish are lurking, running a small terrestrial over their head is a good program. The skinnier the water, the more likely they will be to react. If you’ve got some Hippie Stompers and Cinnamon Ants, you should be in the game.
There have been a fair number of caddis and some larger mayflies about. I saw lots of Tricos on Wednesday along with some Pseudos and even a few more favorable BWO's. In the rain on Thursday morning, there was a big midge hatch. It will be interesting to see how things change this coming week.
We've got our first big cold front rolling through right now and the fish should respond favorably. The streamer bite on Thursday morning was pretty special. The first significant cold front of the season is always a great opportunity to pull some flies for aggressive fish. A couple degrees of falling water temps really lights them up. Especially under darker skies. It looks like our ten-day forecast is projecting daily highs approximately 30 degrees less than we experienced the past ten days. That's a big change. A good one for fly fishing.