Summertime provides some excellent angling opportunities.. Bugs start hatching, fish start eating dry flies, and the weather is cooperative for the most part. Once the big bugs start to appear, I have a very hard time putting an indicator rig back on. It is all about fishing a dry with a dropper. This can provide some really fun fishing when trout are eating both your dry fly and your dropper fly. These are my favorite Dry-Dropper rigs for fishing the local waters.
Dry: Purple Chubby Chernobyl Dropper: Lightning Bug
I love this rigged and ready to go when fishing the Gallatin canyon. Purple seems to trigger fish in many different bodies of water to make mistakes and the Lightning bug dropper works well when the water off color is coming down from run-off.
Dry: Low Rider Stone Dropper: Yellow Sally
The Golden Stones hang out for a while after the Salmonflies have done their thing. I love this hatch because trout have a difficult time resisting such a large and easy meal. The eats are explosive. The Sally is a reliable pattern to fish post run-off when a lot of the fish are still tight to the banks.
Dry: Yellow Sally Stimulator Dropper: Guide’s Choice Hare’s Ear
Sallies come out in good numbers practically everywhere around Bozeman. A yellow stimulator can absolutely crush it, especially on some smaller creeks. The Guide’s Choice imitates a lot of different bugs that could be hatching, making it a very effective dropper pattern when the bugs are out.
Dry: Pink Chubby Chernobyl Dropper: $3 Dip
This is hands down one of my favorite rigs to fish for Cutthroat trout. More times than not fish will eat the Chubby but if they refuse the $3 Dip will typically get the job done. This can be a fun setup to fish because you can twitch or skate the Chubby or swing/strip the dropper to make it look like it is emerging.
Dry: Morrish Hopper Dropper: Wooly Bugger
Some could argue that Hopper fishing is the most fun time to fish when it’s good. The eats are amazing, the fish will eat a hopper for months, and fly selection isn’t usually a huge issue. There is nothing quite like twitching a hopper out from under an overhanging tree to entice an eat. The dropper on this setup doesn’t get as many eats as the hopper, but it has definitely landed some larger fish, making this setup fun and effective.