The 2019 open water Guide Season is upon us! I was privileged to be able to take out clients today up on the Garrison Dam Tailrace region. The best part of guiding for me is, people jump in my boat as customers and truly leave my boat as friends! I absolutely love this part of the game.
So as many of us from this region are aware of, the waters way down south on this reservoir and beyond are extremely high and flooding. So this obviously put the flows out of the Garrison Dam extremely low. With super low flows and gin clear waters things can get a bit tricky up in this stretch. First and foremost you need to be careful driving around. Quite a few obstacles in the road and if your off your trail a bit it can bite you in the you know where! So if you venture up in this area with your boat, you probably want a roller trailer for loading and unloading purposes, and certainly a smaller rig.
Go to tactic for me is pretty simple, I like using 1/4 oz jigs darker colored jigs tipped with minnows, run on a superline, partnered with a JTX medium Lite JT Custom Rod. Now, I’m not trying to be a commercial here, but I’m telling you if you haven’t had a chance to use one of these rods, they are amazing! So…ok, maybe just a tiny commercial, if your interested in one either get a hold of me, or go to Jtodp.com and check them out, if you decide you like what you see, type in the promo code Mpeluso and save some money on your order. No Limits use this code as much as you like! You won’t regret it!
We bounced around quite a bit today trying to avoid a lot of traffic and also the bitter cold south wind that seemed to be blowing way harder than the weather man predicted. I’m always looking for changes in water viler, current changes and deeper pockets. Move in quietly and set yourself up to pitch jigs. Everyday is different and you need to pay close attention to detail up here. Anyway, I’m super excited the season for open water guiding is upon us! If you want to book a trip please get ahold of me and let’s line something up! If not the Tailrace the spring bite on the Missouri River here out of Bismarck should be upon us very soon Mikepelusooutdoors@gmail.com