2016 Annual Meeting Fishing Report Group

We've started up a Group for the 2016 Annual TU Meeting fishing activities. Please join the group and find out all that is going on the AM Hosted Fishing Day and the great fly fishing action that will be available during the Annual Meeting being held in the "trout capitol of the world", Bozeman, MT!

I've been guiding and outfitting fly fisherman in southwest Montana for over 40 years, and I've developed personal relationships with lots of our brown, rainbow, and cutthroat trout.  If you have questions about the fishing activities around Bozeman, please don't hesitate to email me at DKumlien@tu.org  Glad to help. 

As I mentioned in my first post, if I had to pick 10 days to go fly fishing around Bozeman, I'd pick the 10 days surrounding our Annual Meeting.  The end of September and early October offer tremendous fly fishing for trout opportunities.  I'll write more about those throughout the summer.  

So, how about a what's going on right now report?  Well, it is SALMONFLY TIME!  The big bugs are about finished on the Big Hole, going on the Madison, and roaring on the Yellowstone.  I've been fishing all three, and it has been kind of a strange year in that lower water and warm temperatures heated up the Salmonflies, and they've come out over LONG stretches of the river all at once.  On the Big Hole, in one day, they emeraged over nearly 50 miles of river from Glenn to Wise River.  They've done the same thing on the Yellowstone, too.  All the Salmonfly rivers have provided some good fishing, but in my estimation, the best has been the Yellowstone.  In most years, the Yellowstone is still muddy and high and largely unfishable during most of the Salmonfly.  This is not the case this year.  If you look at the streamflows on the Yellowstone, you will see that they are WELL below the "diamonds", the normal flow.  It's been warm, too. So, the bugs are roaring up the river and are spread out from mid-valley to Gardiner and moving into the Park.  I had some of my guides fishing the river yesterday, and several reported GREAT dry fly fishing.  There's a joke we tell about the Salmonfly hatch.  It makes grown men quit work and write bad checks!  When it's good, there's nothing like trout slamming  size 2 anf 4 dry flies!  

So, I hope you enjoy this Group.  Tell you friends and anyone who is coming to the meeting to join in. I hope this Group will become a forum for folks to post questions and ask advice.  

Good fishing to you!

Dave Kumlien

MGTU member and 40 year fly fishing outfitter