August Fishing on the Missouri River
By: Warren DeMark
August. It’s like a dirty word among fly fisherman. A word draped in stereotypes of poor fishing. Sure, August in a lot of areas can be the dog days of the season with warm water temps and hoot owl closures. Montana has its fair share of warm water in August that leads to poor trout fishing. But the Missouri is different. We have three reservoirs full of water that feed into our river, and it stays pretty damn cold all year long. And in August, we have plenty of water, and plenty of fish that are eager to eat some bugs, making us the place to be in August.
The name of the game in August for us is dry flies. Nymphing slows down in August, but we don’t mind because we’re all about the dry flies. Most of the month we have our marquee trico hatch. This hatch has thousands and thousands of small mayflies hatching in the morning, usually around the time we are arriving at the river for the day. Check out the trico video I have linked for some examples of what this hatch looks like. After these mayflies mate, they fall back down to the water as spinners, and the buffet opens up for the trout. Every soft water back eddy and riffle has rising fish. If you’re quiet, you can hear the noise of mouths opening and closing as the fish gorge themselves on spinners. Our approach for fish eating tricos is to park our drift boat slightly above and adjacent to a pod of fish and pick out the biggest snout. Getting these fish to eat can seem daunting with the endless supply of bugs, but they eat so often that the most important thing is timing. Timing your cast with their eating cycle can lead to great results. Fish will eat Tricos all day, but the peak of this action is in the morning before lunch. After lunch is when we switch from size 18 dries to size 6’s.
Hopper fishing on the Missouri River is a treat. Seeing 20 inch browns slowly creep up to inhale your giant bug is a sight like no other. Lots of the eats you will see are slow sips, with the fish rising up slowly and just opening their mouth, letting the bug fall in. The other eats are vicious attacks on your fly, with splashes and water acrobatics that would make a dolphin blush. Half the fun of hopper fishing is seeing them eat it. The best time of day for hopper fishing is in the afternoon when the temperatures rise and the grasshoppers get more active. When the hoppers get active, they get clumsy, and the fish capitalize. Hoppers are also lively bugs, kicking and fluttering when they hit the water, so having a perfect dead drift is not necessary for this type of fishing. Sometimes a slight twitch or pop of your fly will get the fish to react. After fishing to consistent Trico risers in the morning and squinting to see your fly, throwing large hopper flies in the afternoon to prospect is a great change of pace. Another advantage of hopper fishing is fish size. Big brown trout love grasshoppers, and everyday you usually have a good shot at 20+inch brown. I have already written an article on hopper fishing that I will link below if you’re interested in a more in depth description on that type of fishing.
Another possibility in August is streamers. Stripping streamers gives you a better chance at bigger fish, and a shot at a trophy fish if you’re lucky. Trout are aggressive here and love to chase, so you’ll see lots of chases and flashes stripping a streamer. It’s a very visual game that takes some patience, as a natural response to seeing a fish chasing your streamer is to rip it out of its mouth. The best rule of thumb is strip until you feel a bump, then strip set. Inclement weather leads to better streamer fishing. If we get a cold front with clouds and rain, the feeding bell for big fish turns on. Stormy days in the summer can lead to incredible streamer fishing, and August is no exception. One of the best weeks of fishing I have ever had was a week of 50-70 degree days in the middle of August with plenty of rain. This lead to unbelievable streamer fishing with interactions with lots of big trout. While this type of weather is the exception, not the rule, it is always a possibility in Montana. Streamer fishing is another way to diversify your fishing on this river, and it is a rewarding skill to learn with a guide who is knowledgeable on how to approach streamer fishing on this unique fishery. In other words, if you have a 7 wt rod collecting some dust, this is a great place to break it in.
August on the Mo’ is a unique time with some very exciting styles of fishing to experience. It can also be a great time to experience this river with a little less traffic than usual, and with warmer weather, so you don’t have to worry about packing your waders. While other trout fisheries in the country are less appealing during this month, this river is a great option for an August trip. If you’re interested in experiencing this world-class fishery during an exciting time of year, contact us. We’ll have the hoppers ready when you get here!
