March (Brown) madness in April and other spring flies

You see the same thing every year: on the Bitterroot, some anglers get so fixated on the skwala hatch that they forget everything else.

Never mind, especially in a year like this one, that the hatch might sputter from day to day. The angler armed with the hot new skwala fly, or a proven old one, for that matter, might find himself out of luck. These big brown-olive stoneflies bring the big fish up when they're present. And when they're not, the fish might still come up for them.

It's no wonder then, on the Bitterroot, that we see what we do every year. Either the big fish are climbing on those...