Montana Fish Report

It’s barbless artificial lures only until Oct. 31. You are allowed to have 2 fish in possession, but they must be over 18 inches in length.   The perch seem to be moving off of their spawning beds right now, the best way to catch them is to slow troll outside the weed beds. As the summer progresses, they will start moving out to deeper water. You should be trolling with a small sinker or two colors of lead core. Best baits are usually small crank baits, or small Rapalas. Remember you can not use any bait, or scented lures, and your hooks must be barbless.

For trout, the algae is gone, and the fish are biting!  The water is looking really good right now all over the lake.  And, we are getting some good midge hatches most every morning.  Right now there are three good options for fishing Crowley.  Little Hilton has finally started to go off.  The fish seem to be along the weed beds chasing perch fry early in the morning.  When the sun comes up over the ridge, the fish have been dropping back to the deeper water.  14 to 16 feet has been the best.  There is a nice mixture of fish holding in Little Hilton, some dinks, some mid size, and several in the 20 - 22 inch class.  The next option is McGee Bay, from 12 feet, out to 16 feet of water.  The fish are starting to spread out from the channel.  We have been getting some nice browns right up against the weed edges.  Top flies for McGee have been the Red Baron, Copper Zebra, and Copper Tigers early in the morning. Then when the bugs start hatching switch everything over to grey. Super Fly Emergers and Shaft Emergers have been the best.  I've also started to drop down to the smaller grey flies, they seem to get bit a little better. The last option for Crowley is up in the Owens River channels in the north arm of the lake.  There are lots of smaller fish up here with the occasional big one mixed in.  There have been some incredible Callibetis May Fly hatches up here, so you will want to throw on a Callibetis Emerger as your top fly.   The trolling can be epic as it was last week when one boat had 18 fish over two pounds, topped by a six pound hook jaw for Gene Hatz from Laguna Beach. The fish that we get are deep in the 30-35 foot zone in various areas from 35-80 feet. Obviously there is still some cool water in the deeper zones. Best lures have been the Tasmanians as they can sink deep through the areas of algae without getting gunked up. It is pretty hard to get the minnow type lures through the algae layer at the surface without having them gunked up. When the bloom stops all the minnow and various needlefish type lures will work. When the bloom and the stringy weeds subside take some laps outside the fly fishermen at the creek mouths as that can be a blast. Good luck as this barbless season can be the best time to be on the lake.

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