Now that it seems winter has FINALLY relented, let’s take a look at what the season has in store.

With our first somewhat sustained heatwave of the season on the way later this week you can expect plenty of traffic on the MO as runoff conditions commence around the region driving the throngs to the MO.

Locally, flows bumped to near 5800 cfs today with water temps slowly climbing (currently 41.5 degrees). We’re expecting to see continued increases in flows with most probable flow models calling for max flows near 8k in May and possibly a peak of 10 – 12K in June.

Obviously the 6K plus flows are not ideal for wade fishing but for those doing the boat thing these predicted spring flows are right where we want them. Not too high, not too low. And these flows are great for the fishery as well giving our spawning rainbows more cover and also providing them access to side channel habitat which has been dried up the past couple of seasons. Please keep an eye out for those redds when you’re wading and avoid walking on them.

And speaking of the fishery – we’ve been meaning to share these numbers for a few weeks now but just haven’t had a chance to get to it.

As if you needed any more of a reason to fish the Missouri this season, the numbers are in and they confirm what we’ve been telling you all along, that the MO is hands down one of, if not THE best trout fishery in North America. Prolific doesn’t even begin to describe what we’ve got here but it’s a start.

Just how prolific are we talking? How about over 7700 trout per mile in the Craig stretch? Sounds pretty prolific to me.

That’s 6,132 rainbows (almost double the mean of 3,263) and 1,594 browns (approaching three times the mean of 604). This is the third highest total count since they’ve been keeping records, down just slightly from 2021 which was the second highest count on record. And for those who are big fans of brown trout – this is the highest count ever of brown trout in the Craig stretch.

And these aren’t minnows we’re talking about. These are all fish over 10” with an abundance of fish that will likely be pushing 18” – 20” this season. Last year’s rainbow count found over 1000 rainbows per mile in the 16” class and there were also a bunch of browns in that 12” – 14” range so expect plenty of 16” plus browns this season. There should also be some lunkers out there with over 100 browns in the 20” – 24” class last year.

The Cascade stretch also saw good numbers with close to 2000 trout per mile. That’s 1,265 rainbows (down from the 1703 average) and 566 browns (well up from the 393 average).

It’s a busy river with a ton of angling pressure and conditions have been less than ideal for a couple of seasons now with drought conditions which even led to Hoot Owl Restrictions on the MO in 2021. Low flows, high water temps, high angling pressure…these are not ideal conditions for any river and in many cases these conditions can lead to a serious decline in the quality of the fishery.

But not on the MO.

She continues to amaze each season but that being said, we refuse to take this amazing resource for granted and you shouldn’t either.

Please consider making a donation to one or more of the watchdog groups on the MO who make it their business to monitor and care for our amazing fishery.

The Upper Missouri Watershed Alliance, Pat Barnes Trout Unlimited, Missouri River Flyfishers and Montana Trout Unlimited could all use your help today.