We turned the clocks back this last week. While this is a largely ceremonial task, it’s got us thinking about the transition from fall to winter. We are still fishing the creek and are enjoying hosting and guiding many visitors who have come to fish the late fall/early winter run of brown trout and the fall baetis hatch.
Things have slowed a bit from the frenetic pace of spring and summer to a relaxed rhythm. This is evidenced by the natural life around the spring creeks. At this time of year, they are the most consistent places to fish for trout and specifically to target trophy class fish.
We see some beautiful fish this time of year in all sizes, shapes and colors. The fishing itself is a heady combination of weather, relative solitude, baetis hatches, and the anticipated tug of fish heavy with a season of growth and feeding underneath their belts. The brookies at Checkerboard ponds are as brilliantly colored as any, with dark backs set off by bright bellies and sharply contrasted fins. The resident and migratory browns that run up the spring creek are equally as colorful with hues of blue and large cherry dots in juxtaposition to buttery yellow undersides. A physiological response as they begin their breeding rights of fall.
This fall we’ve enjoyed, by many accounts, pretty phenomenal fall baetis hatches. It’s been a solid month of fishing this diminutive mayfly emergence to selectively rising fish. During one snowstorm at the end of October our guests found fish greedily rising to crippled duns and emergers stuck in the surface film. “If you could get the fly in front of them today, they’d eat it” the group told us in the fly shop. All this despite the weather. They did well, landing several fish over 18” on the #22 snowshoe baetis….in a full on Montana snowstorm. I think the weather was as much a novelty as the fishing, and I am sure they will be telling tales of the day for many years to come. Memories made for a lifetime.
Soon we will slip into the Christmas season and the stillness of winter. The days are short, the snow piles up, but the fishing can still be very good, and the thoughtful angler knows that this transition means winter midging and with it the introspection and mindful examination of time and place one finds themself drifting towards when creekside.
These are great days to be a fly angler in Southwest Montana, even better when you find yourself on the Paradise Valley spring creeks.
Our fly shop is open and while we have transitioned from summer to fall, and now to winter, we are still fishing. In this business some days are busier than others, but we are starting to look ahead to the beginning of spring. It’s a beautiful cycle that we get to live.