Fly fishing Montana

Went on a vacation this week to Missoula Montana to, among other things, go fly fishing! When I get there I find out almost all the rivers are blown out due to flooding, bummer indeed. The one place that was supposedly doing well was Rock Creek.  So I head that way and find that river to also be flooding however the water is still relatively clear. The word was the bite was supposed to be on salmon flies as they were the big hatch at the time. I did find one, check it out!

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They are big! So the fly of choice to immitate these is a floating salmon fly.

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Now I fishes this for awhile with a small dropper San Juan worm below it to no avail. I spent my first day struggling with the high water and snags and low ammount of usual trout terratory. However did get some sweet photos

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The next day I read up a bit and switched strat to running a long legs nymph that simulates the salmon fly nymph, with a San Juan worm trailor.

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The river also seemed a bit lower and having explored the first day I was able to concentrate a bit more on smaller sections of the river.  This paid off in a more comfortable fishing experience and allowed me to locate smaller hole the fish might hide in. 
I located a log in the stream, an offshoot of the main river, that gave a good eddy to it.  Using my long legs pattern I flicked it up into the eddy and saw a flash of silver! Finally a fish! A few more attempts later and I was hooked up. He was not a big rainbow but a fish non the less and my first montana trout on the fly!

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Also had a cool encounter with a snake, because he was hungry to and hunting in the flooded grass.

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All in all it was a frustrating start to my fly fishing but ended up art least with me not getting skunked!