GREAT FALLS AREA FISHING REPORT

July 24, 2025

Summary 

Warm weather this week, after the last few cooling days. Look for bug activity to really explode this upcoming week, whether that’s mayflies, caddis or hopper/terrestrials. Here at the shop, we have a full line of hoppers in every possibly color and size. Swing by or call the shop to get setup and get more in-depth on the fishing! 

Lower Mo

Cascade down is pretty weedy, making bank fishing pretty tricky. 
Cascade CFS: 4,490 
Ulm CFS: 3,380 

Reservoirs

Good reports for fishing reservoirs. Holter is high in recreational activity, so hitting early in the AM seems to be the best bet. Pishkun is hot right now for the warmwater species. Other reservoirs out west on the front seem to be pretty low. 


Lake Flies:

- Adult Damsel, sizes 10, 12  
- Fat Angie purple, sizes 18, 16  
- Ground Beetle, size 10  
- Zack Attack Damsel olive/orange, size 14  
- Willy’s Fruit Roll Up black or blood, size 10 


Carp Flies:  
- Beard Louse olive or brown, size 4  
- Carp Hex, size 6  
- Carp Nugget, size 8  


Bass Bugs: 
- Etoucray olive, size 2  
- Killed Over Perch, size 6  
- Clydesdale Perch, size 1/0  
- Devil Dog, size 2 


Pike Flies: 
- Jurassic Pork, size 4/0 
- popper, size 1/0 
- Trainwreck, size 2 

Creeks

Running dry/droppers seems to be the name of the game. Make sure your dropper is not weighing down the dry but still getting down quickly. For dry/dropper rigs, I like to run a nylon or mono 7.5-foot 2X leader, snipping back a foot or so then double clinching an oval tippet ring to it. The reason for doing so is that I'm not cutting back the leader and tying everything to the tippet ring. The reason for 2X is I can snip off my 3X dry fly tippet and throw on 2X fluoro and throw streamers, or 3X fluoro and run a nymph rig without cutting my leader back.  


Go-To Flies for the rig: 
Dry  
- YFG Ugly Delicious olive, sizes 12, 10  
- Voodoo Doll red sizes 12, 10  
- Water Walkers royal purple, sizes 12, 10, 8   
Dropper  
- Batman Nymph purple, sizes 16, 14, 12  
- Space-X black, size 16  
- FB Pheasant Tail, sizes 20, 18, 16   


MISSOURI RIVER FLOW DATA


MISSOURI RIVER WEATHER FORECAST


OTHER REPORTS WE LIKE TO FOLLOW


Missouri River fishing reports aren't always the same. One stretch of the river may fish better than others which is why we like to check a number of different fishing reports from other shops in the area. We've gathered our favorite fishing report sources in the links below.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Where is the best fishing on the Missouri River?
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