Awesome August

Have you been fishing?

I don't want to jinx anything but... how nice has August turned out so far??! Smoke free skies, temps have cooled off, water levels hanging in there... I don't know what else an angler could want in August!

In the fishing guide industry August is known as "Angry August". Guides have become super salty after so many days of the same repetitive thing.... mend, mend, mend, set, set, set, don't worry about losing that we will tie on another rig, mend, mend, mend, etc you get the picture.

I don't think there is a lot of Angry August going on in the west this year, seems like a lot of guides have more days off than not this season. Not sure 100% what the reason is for reduced trips in the west... maybe it was the early hoot-owl restrictions, low water, heat, etc got people changing or cancelling fishing plans. Either way, guides are fishing more than they are rowing people around this August... which has reduced the angriness and improved the mental health.

The rivers are a bit quieter though than in years past. Not void of people, don't get me wrong, folks are fishing, but maybe just not as many.

With Montana lifting a number of hoot-owl restrictions recently this opens up a lot of water for Spokane / Coeur d'Alene anglers that want to hit rivers like the lower Clark Fork near St. Regis. You don't have to get out of bed quite as early, and you don't need to stop fishing in the afternoons.

I've been up on the NF Coeur d'Alene and St. Joe Rivers every week this past month and once on the Spokane. Never had too many problems finding fishable water. Yes, the water is low, but it always is in August. The key to the NF Coeur d'Alene is just find water with depth. The St. Joe has better trenches and pools to fish since the river necks down in so many places so there is no issue of where to find them there. Overnight lows on the St. Joe have been getting into the mid-upper 40's too, reported Mike who was there over the weekend.

The guide crew on the Spokane has had positive reports. While streamer fishing may be getting more of the bigger fish, the dry / dropper fishing has been finding fish no problem. The tuber hatch is also minimized with cooler temps. I would like a little more volume in the river, but we are lucky we have a minimum flow requirement so thankfully we are not completely dry.

And let's not forget steelhead! A fair amount of fish being caught in the Clearwater recently... numbers are looking good! More on that in another post.

In June / July I was sure we would be thick with smoke in August and the rivers dried up and all sorts of fishing restrictions... that certainly has not been the case. It's actually pretty dang awesome for August! Get after it while it's still summer!