Fall Fly Fishing: How to catch your trophy trout in Big Sky Country…

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So you want to know how to catch the “Peach” of your Fall Season in Montana? I hate to break it to you but it isn’t with an egg pattern. The egg can definitely catch you some nice Brown Trout, but you will end up feeling as triumphant as somebody who cheated to win a competition.

Fall Trout Behavior in Big Sky Country

You see, the Fall in Montana is a Brown Trout dynamo. Literally statewide in October, November and December each year, hundreds of thousands of Brown’s leave their primary fishery to navigate upstream to varied tributaries to secure their spawning territory.

Once Brown Trout have begun their annual spawn, their behaviors can change in several ways. Those changes can include staying on or near that spawning bed theoretically until the deed (spawn) is done as well as focusing on protecting that bed (from other Trout) and its eggs until the conclusion of the spawn. That behavior would be opposed to foraging or hunting for food as they would normally do. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Brown’s do not eat during the spawn but it does mean that their primary drive turns to protecting that spawning bed aggressively as opposed to garnering nutrients for themselves. From a Fly fishing standpoint that behavior both benefits and decreases a Fly Angler’s fishing strategies.

Where to catch your Trophy Trout

First of all, it is deemed unethical to post up and fish a spawning bed. Yeah I know, someone showed you how or told you it was ok but it’s not. In an unethical nutshell, you are disrupting Brown’s during their most vulnerable and critical stage and that is when they are reproducing both for the benefit of their species replenishment as well as our benefit as sportsmen by replenishing the Brown Trout population that we obviously love to catch. It is true, fishing egg patterns to spawning Brown Trout can be very effective at catching Brown trout. However as the Foul Hooked Whitey once compared, if you walked into a whore house with a pocket full of cash you are going to get “plenty” just don’t think you are a “Romeo”.

Here is how you ethically fish a Brown Spawn. First of all just fish standard holding water. Secondly fish a Streamer pattern. If you fish to regular holding water, you are (A) not targeting a spawning bed and (B) if you fish a Streamer you are inciting a defensive and territorial reaction from a spawning Brown Trout as opposed to fishing an egg pattern that a lot of Brown’s can’t resist and not because you are savvy at matching the Hatch. To a Brown Trout, a Streamer stripped or, swung in from in front of it during the Fall spawn is basically an intruding fish that is challenging that Brown to what it is protecting. There is a serious distinction between getting a Brown Trout to eat an egg pattern or a Streamer. Drifting an egg over a spawning bed is simply too easy and without challenge. Stripping or swinging a Streamer over a Brown Trout spawning area is neither easy or automatic.

If you fish this way during the Fall Brown Trout Spawn not only with you fish ethically during this delicate time of year but with the right Streamer you might end up catching your Fall “Peach”.