Missouri River Report 2.5.16

If you pick your days, you can have a soulful winter outing on the Missouri River. Jeff goes fishing any chance he can get. On this day, he was rocking his new Simms G4 Jacket, Sage One Trout Spey and a Missouri River Brown. I’m guessing Mr. Brown appreciated Jeff’s Professional Grade ensemble a bit less than Jeff did.

Fishing reports are mixed as always. Guys like Jeff are catching their fish on the swing. That’s how they want to fish. That’s how I like to fish. It’s really fun. If the fish are feeling chompy, it’s a blast. If they are not, you keep swinging anyway, because the process is fun regardless of the outcome.

My buddy Kevin is out several days each week working nymphs and tiny midglings. He’s always cooking up some new patterns and tweaking the good ones. He’s also catching plenty of fish along the way. Regardless of the tweaks and the new, he will still tell you that a Pink Ray Charles in the right place will catch plenty of fish. The daily question is to Fire Bead or not. Try one of each. Let the fish tell you what they want. If they eat them both, that’s OK too.

The ten day outlook is mild, with a side of wind. We’ve seen lots of wind this week and it looks like it will continue through Saturday. Unfortunately, wind likes to tag along with the warmer weather. Sunday and into next week looks much better. All the best days seem to come during mid-week. Especially for the Monday through Friday working crew.

What will the future bring? Will we see more winter weather or are we already moving into the real deal fishing season? The latter half of February and into March was pretty mild last year. Pretty darn fishy too. I sure hope the Missouri River drainage sees a bunch more snow. In any event, don’t wait for some magical date to begin your fishing season. 2016 Licenses are now on sale. If you can get out in the good weather this coming week, enjoy! Stop in this weekend for fresh coffee, fresh conversation and fresh flies.