Project In The Wild #57: Missouri River Predators

By Jay D'Arpini

The Missouri River isn’t exactly known for pike fishing. But over the past few years, pike have taken a hold in the river, especially downstream of Cascade. In this episode of Project IN The Wild, we spend a day on the MO with Montana Fly Company's Kris Keller, a professional tyer who's known for his productive trout flies. This time he brought a variety of beefy, new patterns specifically tied for pike, and put those flies to the test. In early spring, pike are locked into pre-spawn mode, and on the move. During our day on the Missouri it took patience to find the fish. And, because a weather front had moved in, the fish actually preferred smaller patterns over the behemoths we started with. Eventually, we finally put a couple nice pike in the net.