Fishing Reports

Simon Gawesworth from RIO Products called me up a few months ago and asked me if I’d like to fish the Missouri River with him sponsored by RIO. It didn’t take long for me accept his generous offer. I was thrilled at the opportunity not only to fish with Simon, but also to get to spend some time on the “Mighty Mo”.

   We fished four days covering the stretch between Holter Dam and Cascade. Each day we would fish a different section of river, normally covering 8 to 10 miles each day. The river was in great shape and the trout were hungry and aggressive. We had the best 3 or 4 day stretch of weather in October that Geof (one of our quides with 11 years experience on the Missouri) had ever seen. Our days were wind free for the most part, which is not the norm for this time of year. The great weather and no wind gave us the opportunity to fish any way we wanted. We nymphed a little, but why nymph when you’ve got big noses poking out of the water all day willing to take a dry. The Baetis hatches we incredible during the warmest part of the day, with blankets of bugs on the water that sometimes reached 40 to 50 bugs per square foot. I personally enjoyed the streamer fishing, targeting the structure along the rivers edge, Current seams and drop offs. Your best chance at really big trout on the Missouri is sometimes to throw really big streamers. We had a great time catching lots of Rainbows and Brown Trout averaging 15 to 17 inches, with quite a few around 20 inches. The big fish of the trip was a very healthy Brown that was a hair under 23 inches and caught by Charles George (aka The Prince) from The Bedford Sportsman on a Sculpin pattern that was 4 inches long. It was a great trip with fantastic people and thanks are due to the guides Mike and Geof , and the rest of the fine folks at The Trout Shop in Graig that took care of us. I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with Simon and the rest of the Rio staff.

   If your looking for a great streamer line, try the Rio Outbound integrated shooting taper. It a great line for punching out big streamers a long way with accuracy.

 

Peter Bowers

The Patient Angler                        patientangler.com