Salmon flies excite fly fishers

By ROB BREEDING

Special to the Inter Lake

If you want to make a Montana fly fisher all weak at the knees, just whisper two simple words: salmon fly.

Use that phrase in a sentence, such as "Did you hear that the salmon fly hatch is on?" and expect your acquaintance's eyes to glaze over as the angler mumbles something about a business trip to Ennis that can't wait.

No bug gets to fly fishers the way salmon flies do. These stoneflies are the biggest, juiciest morsels on the menu in most Montana rivers - think Tyler's Ultimate for trout - and when the hatch is on, trout make pigs of themselves.

The trick is hitting it just right.

"Anglers come from all over the country with visions of three-pound browns on dry flies dancing in their heads," said Chuck Stranahan, owner of Chuck Stranahan's Flies and Guides in Hamilton. But they often end up "slappin' the banks with Bitch Creeks in rain-swollen rivers."

Bitch Creeks are the large nymphs fly fishers use to imitate immature salmon flies before they crawl out of rivers and hatch into their winged adult stage. Bitch Creeks fished near the banks in early stages of the hatch can indeed be a very productive technique. But it doesn't have the pizazz of dry fly fishing for lunker browns.

Timing is so critical for salmon flies that Stranahan considers it the state's most overrated hatch. But that doesn't mean he advises anglers to take a pass.

Instead, he urges flexibility.

He recalls a day years ago guiding on California's Hat Creek, when swooping and diving nighthawks feasting on salmon flies filled the sky. But feeding trout would have nothing to do with the salmon fly imitations his client was offering. Out of frustration, Stranahan bent over, peering closely at the surface film, where he saw tiny spent mayflies - No. 18 Brown Quills - floating in the current.

That's what the trout were feeding on, Stranahan said. The salmon flies were 40 feet in the air, not on the water. His client started hooking up, though he was a little miffed he hadn't hit the salmon fly hatch.

Eric Swedman, who works in the fly shop at the Madison River Fishing Co. in Ennis, also advises anglers to be ready to adapt. It can be tough to hit the head of the hatch, he said. But there are always plenty of back-winged flies - caddis and stones - on the Madison in June. So if you're on the river a little early or late, go with smaller flies.

"Sometimes the fish are a little more wary of [big patterns] and are going to take something smaller," Swedman said.

Stranahan suggests a similar approach on Rock Creek. The stream, which enters the Clark Fork River about 30 miles east of Missoula, has one of the region's best-known salmon fly hatches. But Stranahan often fishes it later in the cycle, keying on smaller golden stoneflies.

If timing is the key, set your salmon-fly alarm to go off early this year. There are already reports from southwestern Montana's top salmon fly streams, and it looks like the hatch may come early.

"There are rumors of big bugs on the lower Madison, but I think we've still got a ways to go," Swedman said. He expects the head of the hatch to

hit Ennis about mid-June, and between Quake and Hebgen lakes about the first of July. Later, the bugs will appear on the Madison in Yellowstone National Park.

On the Big Hole River, salmon flies were showing up near Notch Bottom about 15 miles downstream from Melrose the last week of May, said Ryan Barba, owner of Sunrise Fly Shop in Melrose. In the meantime, nymphs were catching fish upstream as anglers awaited the head of the hatch. Salmon flies have been reported on both the Bitterroot River and Rock Creek as well.

Anglers should call ahead for reports if they are obsessed with catching the hatch just right. But even if you miss it, remember there are worst places to be in June than floating or wading a Montana trout stream. This time of year the fish are usually on to some kind of hatch.

Still, nothing beats salmon flies when you hit it just right.

Even Stranahan isn't immune to the pull of the big bugs, especially when the visions of big browns dancing on No. 6 dry flies tied to 2X tippet cloud his mind.

"It still gets my juices flowing," he said.

Rob Breeding of Kalispell writes about Montana hunting and fishing at www.mthookandbullet.com.