A nice, wet month of of May is what we needed here and it's exactly what we got. Regular afternoon thunderstorms and a few soaker days have helped us recharge our aquifers across the state and it will help keep the rivers flowing and the fish happy through the summer. June is looking awesome as our freestone fisheries will wrap up what appears to be a shorter than normal run-off season and the big stoneflies are already hatching on some of them. The Madison and Blackfoot Rivers should be the first to pop, and the Yellowstone will follow along shortly thereafter. Unless a monsoon drops on us, we should be totally fishable on all our blue-ribbon rivers before July 1, which is awesome.
On tailwaters like the Missouri the caddis have popped in the lower stretches, the pmd frenzy is on the cusp, and these hatches will consume us for the next few weeks. Do you like to cast small dryflies at rising fish? Lots of them? Stoop drooling and buy your plane ticket today.
Spring fishing is fun, we love the annual return to our rivers and seeing how our fishy friends are doing after a long winter, but it's just the warm up act for the main event; summertime. Sandals and shorts, tricos and terrestrials, sunscreen and scenery. We are now in the primetime slot of the season and it's all systems go. If you want to plan a summer trout outing you better get cracking because it goes way too fast.
