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August in Montana means hot and dry, windy days, which leads to one of my favorite times of the year; hopper time.  There are two types of fly fishermen, those who fish hoppers and those who don't.  I won't mention any names of those who don't fish hoppers because Sam would be really embarassed, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him.  For those who haven't fished hoppers or chose not to fish hoppers, you're really missing out.  Its not everyday that you can fish a huge, foamy bug on 3x and continually hook big fish.  For me, it's not about landing the biggest fish I can on a dry, but it's moreso about the take when fishing a hopper.  Fish take a hopper with the worst intentions.  The strikes range from a very aggressive slash to flushing the toilet, which usually fuels my talk around the water cooler the next day as opposed to "You shoulda seen the fish I caught yesterday," sorta talk.  This is the time of year that wind is actually your friend too.  I know what you're thinkin, wind and fishing dries don't go together, right?  Wrong.  Hopper fishing is one of the exceptions to the rule.  Here the wind helps by blowing the hoppers off the banks and into the water.  You can think of it as chumming the water, trust me it makes a difference between a good day and a great day. 





            



        
   



The predominant setup for hopper fishing is known as the "hopper-dropper" rig (dropping a nymph off your hopper...pretty self-explanitory), which tends to lead to more fish on the nymph than the hopper.  A setup that is becoming more and more popular among those die-hard dry guys is a double dry setup with a hopper in front and another terrestrial or attractor behind it.  Try Bloom's ant behind M's hopper (both shown above) for this setup, you won't be disappoint.

For those who haven't fished a hopper, this is the year to try it, thats if you want a chance at a mellon-head like KK stuck here.  Brian Hollum knows what I'm talkin about.