We made it through a very long, cold, snowy and windy winter to finally enjoy a few days of spring. Those two or three days sure were nice...

The past winter has been an extremely snowy one for sure. For the first time I can remember every main drainage in Montana had a year to date snow water equivalent of over 100 percent.

Now the run-off begins. On top of the run-off much of Montana is experiencing major rainfall. The result is sure to be a long and drawn out run-off. The best guess anyone has for when the Yellowstone River is going to be clear and safe to float is sometime in mid July.

The upside to all this water is that the summer months, late July and August, are sure to be fishing very well. There will be plenty of water in the rivers and that can very well mean epic hopper fishing!

With all this snow and recent rain even the Big Horn is being impacted. The Big Horn is flowing at over 8,000 cfs as of May 21. However, the fishing has been and should continue to be very good. In fact, even at this flow you can still float the river and find rising trout. The nymph and streamer fishing has been very productive.

If you have plans to fish the Big Horn over the next month or so expect plenty of water and very hungry fish. Remember a couple seasons ago when the Horn was flowing at almost 14,000 cfs? Even with that much water the fishing was great. Adjust and adapt. The fish will still be eating!