Montana Angler Fly Fishing Blog

Crayfish, sometimes called crawdads or mud bugs, are large freshwater crustaceans that inhabit many of the rivers and streams of southwest Montana. Resembling a miniaturized Maine lobster, crawfish have long antennae, a pair of claws that can pinch hard enough to break skin, and a segmented tail...

For many fly anglers, late winter and early spring is a time of dreaming about fly fishing during warm summer days. For those who might want to get an earlier start on their fishing season, midges provide a great fly-fishing opportunity. Midge fishing can be productive as early as January on the...

“Oh, I'll never leave Montana, brother.” This is a line from Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It” that I have rehearsed and have assumed to be true since I moved here over 20 years ago. This February, I was lucky enough to get to spend two weeks fishing in the Aysen region of Chilean Patagonia...

As winter had tightened its grasp on Montana, I dreamed of warmer weather and hungry trout eating bushy dry flies in the Southern Hemisphere. I hung up my snowboard and put the cover over my snowmobile, and then geared up for warmer weather on my hosted trip to El Encuentro Lodge and Brook Trout...

April is one of the more exciting months of the year for Montana anglers. Although winter fishing is great...things really begin to get exciting when water temperatures begin rising in the spring. More and more water becomes accessible as ice shelves recede and snow banks melt off. One of the great...

Fly fishing provides the finest excuse to travel to beautiful places; but life is short, and the world is large. When planning our next fishing adventure, we make a choice to target new waters or return to cherished favorites. Although the desire burns deep within me to explore novel fisheries in...

Tips for Getting the Best Drift to Catch More Fish A crucially important technique for catching trout on a Montana fly fishing river, is getting the best possible drift. And, many times the best way to get the best drift to catch more trout is a "dead drift." The goal of the dead drift is to float...

Patagonia is a massive swath of remote and rugged country that encompasses the southern reaches of Argentina and Chile. Bisected by the Andes Mountain, Patagonia presents anglers with a variety of fishing opportunities. For those ready to explore Argentina, be prepared for breathtaking landscapes...

Travel to Cuba for American citizens has long been a complicated affair. In recent years legal travel for Americans to Cuba has become much easier with daily flights on American Airlines flying to Havana and other cities. We’ve heard some great reports from anglers sampling the Cuban saltwater flats...

If you’ve spent any amount of time interested in fly fishing you’ve probably come across Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It.” Even if you’re not interested in fishing, you’ve likely seen or heard of Robert Redford’s film adaptation of that story starring a young Brad Pitt as Paul Maclean. The...