What fly fishing flies/methods work best for you in the river you usually fish in, and whare is it located?

Question

Just seeing what flies and methods work best for you on the river you fish.

Answer 1

For fresh water, mainly rivers, I fish a few rivers in Washington State, with the main one being the Yakima River. I fish that river a lot.

My real 'love affair' is with Montana. I fish the Missouri River below Holter Dam down to Cascade. That area is located between Helena and Great Falls where the river is coming out of the Rocky Mountains and starting to hit the flat farm lands. The other area of Montana that I love to go to is the Dillon area, down in southwest Montana. There are 5 excellent rivers to fish within a few hours drive: The Madison; Beaverhead; Big Hole; Jefferson & the Ruby. The Big Hole is my favorite with the Beaverhead a close second.

Last year a group of is went to Casper, Wyoming and fished the North Platte River. That is an excellent place to go to and I will be going back there to fight those Rainbows again.

Just for info, on all of the above rivers, I always do guided trips in drift boats or rigid framed rafts. The guides know the rivers and which flies the fish are taking at the time you are fishing. That greatly increases the catch (and release) rate.

As for the flies, since the fish feed 90%+ of the time on nymphs, that is the type of fly I mostly fish. I always leave it up to the guides, but I tell them I will fish nymphs, streamers or dries, which ever method is best to fish at that particular time on the river. Most of the time it is nymphing. I come prepared to fish all three ways.

I do love dry fly fishing, but if you limit yourself to that you will have some rather slow days. However, when the fish come to the surface and start taking flies, then I switch to my dry fly rod. For dries on those rivers, the main flies are Caddis; Parachute Adams; BWO; PMD's; Grasshopper variations and Stimulators. The flies used on the Yakima and the Missouri tend to be on the smaller size. The flies on the rivers around Dillon can be larger, depending on what is coming off.

For nymphing, most of the time I will use a double fly system, but in Wyoming it was a triple fly system. I guarantee that during the day on any one of those rivers I will end up using San Juan Worms, Beadhead Flashback Pheasant Tails, (I just realized I forgot to list another very good nymph that is a must have, the Hare's Ear) Beadhead Hare's Ears and Beadhead Hare's Ears with flash, Copper Johns, Brassies (another one I think I forgot to mention before, plus this one as well) Lightening Bugs and Prince Nymphs. Then there are some caddis nymphs that the guides tie that are favorites on their rivers. The guides also will use some of their own Stonefly nymph patterns.

As for the streamers, it is whatever the guide wants to put on, usually a home tied fly of their own that really seems to work on their rivers.

Sometimes it seems the fish will take a wide variety of flies and at other times they are keyed in on one particular insect and if you don't have a good imitation of that bug, it is going to be a slow day. I have had days where we were switching flies about every 10 to 15 minutes because we could not find what they wanted. Eventually we happen across the fly of the day and have a blast.

Larry