Last week we pulled out for a few days fishing on the lower Clark Fork and Noxon Reservoir. Originally I planned to fish for trout in the southwest part of the state but the weather was a little sketchy early in the week and the Georgetown caddis hatch didn’t seem to be full scale and well, I was still after a bass on the fly.
Lower Clark Fork River near Thompson Falls
Before we left I tied up a handful of Clouser minnows, tan and olive with white bellies. I was just browsing around looking at possible bass patterns the other day and happened upon them again. I popped over to youtube and found a video of Bob Clouser tying his famous pattern and headed for the shed to twist up a few.
Noxon is a big reservoir that actually gets fished pretty hard these days, lots of tournament action and just more fishermen overall. A Montana record came out of it in May but our experience this trip was lots of small Large and Smallmouths. It was still a lot of fun, the action was almost constant till late morning and mid day heat set in and then again at sundown.
Island and cliffs on Noxon reservoir, Montana
Most of the fishing was with spin outfits and plastic baits with the greater portion of the fish being caught on Sinko’s but I also got several on crawdad’s. Basically we fished the Sinko’s on steep drops. I’ve never used them before but my kid has so he got me up to speed.
Fishing Noxon Reservoir, Montana
The Sinko’s incidentally were colored very similar to my Clouser’s, olive and white. Once I saw how they worked I hauled out the Clouser minnows and fished them in the same way, casting on the drops and ledges and letting them sink only adding a strip and twitch move along the way and then finishing it off by stripping the minnow back to the boat.
Smallmouth Bass with Clouser Minnow
It worked really well. I didn’t catch any big fish, I think the biggest Smallie was about 13″ but they were still scrappers and enough to keep me motivated to stay in the chase for a big boy.
All in all it was a good trip. We bugged out when the weekend warriors invaded. To say that the reservoir gets pounded pretty hard on weekends and tournament days would be an understatement but we hit it mid week and had a lot of good fishing to ourselves and I found a new friend in the Clouser minnow in my pursuit of a large bass on the fly rod.
