Page 69 - North 40 Outfitters

Omak Lake The weather has improved a lot. I have been getting good reports from the few anglers who have been hitting the lake in the last few days. The large pods of Lahontans are not yet cruising the shoreline, but there are enough just out where the water deepens down to 10 feet to keep you casting. Most of the anglers I have talked to are reporting hooking up on over a dozen fish each day. The most popular streamers are, the #6 olive Sculpinator, and the #2 tan or olive El Sculpito. Indicator anglers are having good success with the #8 black or purple TFP Balanced Squirrel Leech. A #14 or 12 red Snow Cone Chironomid is picking a few fish up also. I would recommend bringing your favorite 6 weight medium-fast to fast-action rod. If minnows and streamer patterns are your choice, I would bring one reel spooled up with an intermediate lin...

Coeur d'Alene River The river is flowing at 1,220 cubic feet a second at Cataldo and should be a good option through the weekend. The weather has warmed and could be in the 50's and even 60's by next week. This will really get the fish going. We will see a bump in the water with a touch of rain in the next couple days, but the fishing should be good. The streamer game should be on fire, so your favorite sculpin pattern in olive or black, large Woolly Buggers, and big bunny flies, should draw attention. Nymphing, of course, will be a good option as well. Bigger stonefly patterns trailed with a smaller beadhead nymph will be a good rig as the stoneflies are starting to move around. I have seen some smaller Nemouras lately and blue-winged olives, and plenty of midges, too. March browns shouldn't be too far off, along with our first look at ...

As with the new Cross SX Series, saltwater anglers requested slightly faster actioned fly rods for certain flats and bluewater conditions. LOOP listened to invaluable feedback from some of the world’s best saltwater anglers and guides to develop a uniform series of medium fast and fast action CROSS SW fly rods. Finished in a deep aesthetic blue, the new SW rods are designed and engineered with LOOP’s signature Cross Core Technology System. This combination of nano resin and high tensile carbon provides consistent, exceptional performance from every single rod in the range. Check out the video below to learn more, or buy this  incredible new Cross SX Series Rod here. You can read another Loop rod review here and Loop reel review here. So, if we move to this part of the stand, what we showcase here is the saltwate...

Compact with twin claws, the Strike King Rage Baby Menace Grub uses custom hi-grade plastics for superior action. When you want to downsize, this baby grub is ideal for lighter flipping. Listen to Shaw Grigsby below as he describes the latest variation of this grub bait at iCast last year. You can buy the Strike King Rage Baby Menace Grub from us online here.   Hi. I'm Shaw Grigsby and we're here at Icast 2017 for North 40 Fish and I've got to show you some new cool stuff from Strike King, the Rage Menace. We've known about this bait for a number of years. It's been one of my famous, just stupid good baits, catch them every which way, shaky head and all that. And it's just a perfect little trailer, whatever, but guess what we came out with this year? The Baby Menace. So, now you have a twin tail and I'm telling you it wiggles, jiggl...

A bat house provides crevices for the bats to rest and roost. As dusk settles on a warm summer evening and bats take to the sky for their nightly meals, my family loves to sit on the porch to see how many we can spot. Dipping and dodging, we can’t glimpse the insects in their sites, but we know they fill an important niche in the ecosystem, keeping insect populations in check. Bats are renowned for their insect eating proclivities and that is not lost on Dan Bachen, senior zoologist at the Montana Natural History Program. “Primarily up here they eat insects, which is why they are absolutely important,” Bachen said. In terms of agriculture, bats save farmers billions of dollars in pest control. In addition, many bat species hold imperative roles in pollination. For those reasons, and others, it’s not a pretty pi...

I went fishing with a guy on Montana’s Blackfoot River a couple years ago and he was so into numbers that, at the end of the day, he whipped a click counter from his pocket, like a baseball umpire would use to track balls and strikes, and read off the tally: 31 trout for the day. I loosely keep track of numbers while fishing, but I never take it too seriously. I did, however, keep track on my birthday one August while fishing Montana’s South Fork Flathead River and ended the day at 100 cutthroats, all taken on dries. This dude I fished with on the Blackfoot was a Czech nymph freak. Had a 10-foot 3-weight all lined up and ready to go, with a couple shrimpy looking creations tied off to the main leader. He said if you wanted numbers you couldn’t beat Czech nymphing and when he told me that 31-fish tally I couldn’t really argue. Iâ€...

If you’d located a giant bull elk in the western Mountains , and it was riled up and searching for cows, and you needed to get that bull across a canyon and into bow range, you’d want Dieter Kaboth to be 30 yards behind you with a diaphragm call in his mouth and a grunt tube pressed to his lips. That’s because many people consider Kaboth to be the best elk caller on the planet. That is backed up by Kaboth’s accolades, which include four Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation world elk calling titles in the professional division. Got elk? Want them close? Get Kaboth. In this video, Kaboth shares simple tips to take your elk calling to the next level. Just starting? Got a stack of antlers to your credit? Doesn’t matter—Kaboth’s words are valuable no matter how green or experienced you may be. Check out the...

Winter weather just will not ease up on us here. Another winter storm is set to arrive in 24 hours. Now is a good time to make sure waders and wading boots are in good shape. Take inventory of your leaders and tippets. Check your lines for nicks and make sure they are in clean condition. There is always room at the counter to sit down and have a cup of coffee and maybe tie up a few flies, or just shoot the breeze about past and future times on the water. Check in with us next week for updated reports. Click here to see past reports from this region, or click here to view all northwest regional reports.

Clearwater River High and unfishable. Reports of ice down the Middle Fork Clearwater have been coming in from a few anglers. I would not focus my efforts on this system. Grande Ronde River (WA) Our fly shop manager from Coeur d’Alene, Tyler Balich, fished the Ronde over the weekend and had success moving and landing fish. The river has been on the drop, so some fresher fish could be moving through the system. Flies swung deep could pick some fish up. Choose a fly that you always have confidence in. Snake River (WA) The rollercoaster at Hells Canyon Dam is still happening. The Snake falls and rises every day. Still, you could find a fish that is willing to play in the slower water. There are plenty of runs, even in high water, that have this slowish water. Seek it. Find it. Fish it. Getting your fly moving slow through the run is ideal....

Coeur d'Alene River Still very cold at night and not much above freezing for daytime temps. These are not ideal conditions. You may find some nymphing opportunity midday at the warmest point. But, until we get some warmer weather in the 40s and 50s the fishing won't really start picking up. Hang in there guys—we will be throwing stoneflies before you know it. St. Joe River Same conditions as you’ll find on the Coeur d'Alene. As soon as we start seeing 40 and 50-degree days it will be back on. Keep an eye on the flows—if we get some rain, it will melt the lowland snow we have and blow out the river. Clark Fork River (MT) Tough fishing here. It is all about water temp right now and the temp is cold. Nymphing in the slower back-eddies might produce a fish or two, but the action won't be hot and heavy. Any feeder streams coming into th...

Missouri River Things can change fast around here. While it was brutally cold for almost three solid weeks, the temps cracked the freezing mark this past weekend and moved into the fishable range. Cabin fe-ver has been running high and some folks got after it. Fish were landed and relief was felt. March on the Missouri River While winter is not done with us yet, fishable weather will become more common as the days lengthen. March is a favorite month for trout spey, for midging, and for simply fishing your way into spring. Fishing remains consistent above Craig and near Holter Dam. After a few mild days, it can pick up in the canyon and downstream toward Cascade. Keep an eye on the thermometer. The water will warm as it moves downstream on a mild day. Fish will remain stationed near drop-offs and shelves or be found cruising the slower in...