Montana Fish Report

Streams and rivers are now closed to trout fishing until next spring. Trout fishing in Tenmile, Eel and Saunders lakes is open all year.

Largemouth bass anglers will need to slow down there presentations as the water temperatures drop. Most bass will be found in deeper water near structure or weed edges.

Anglers fishing from the county fish dock on South Tenmile Lake and boat anglers fishing in 10-16 feet of water have been catching yellow perch fishing with a worm near the bottom. There are lots of small yellow perch so anglers will have to sort to find larger perch. Anglers are reporting decent catches of bluegill and crappie while fishing for yellow perch.

The wild coho salmon season on Tenmile Lakes opened on Oct. 1 and will continue through Dec. 31. Anglers have been catching a few wild coho this past week trolling spinners and crankbaits. Anglers are allowed to harvest 1 wild adult coho per day (and 1 wild coho jack per day) and 5 wild adult coho per season. The 5 wild coho salmon are in aggregate with Siltcoos and Tahkenitch lakes.

Boat anglers have had some success trolling spinners tipped with night crawlers for rainbow trout. Some of these trout range in the 15- to 19-inch range.

There are still no reports of any steelhead being caught at Spinreel Park on Tenmile Creek yet. Winter steelhead tend to run about a month later in the Tenmile system, compared to rivers in the Coos and Coquille basins. Eel Creek is closed to fishing until Jan. 1.