Flathead Lake

I'm going out to MT for a few weeks to stay with my girlfriend/her family at their cabin on Flathead lake. Anyone have experience fishing out there? I've been doing some research on fishing the lake itself, as well as the surrounding streams and rivers. Hoping to do a mix of spin casting and fly fishing because it sounds like there's great opportunities for both.

I do a lot of lake trout and lake whitefish fishing on Flathead Lake.  For examples and pictures, check out my posts in the Montana section of the Northwest Kayak Angler's forum.  There is also good bass and perch fishing in Flathead Lake and in various small lakes and reservoirs in the Flathead Valley, and in the Flathead River.  In addition to getting a State of Montana fishing license, you'll need to get a Tribal fishing license to fish in the Flathead Reservation, which includes the south half of Flathead Lake.  Due to the virus whose name must not be spoken, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have closed Tribal land to recreational use by people who are not residents of the Reservation.  This doesn't affect fishing, but it may make various fishing access sites such as Blue Bay be unavailable to you.

Dick Zimmer at Zimmer Tackle in Pablo and Snappy's in Kalispell are good sources of current information about fishing conditions and locally popular tackle.  If you have experience with lake trout fishing on other lakes, you may find that lake trout hang out much deeper in Flathead Lake then they do in the lakes which you are familiar with.  For example, in the spring and early summer, the most productive way to catch lake trout in Flathead Lake is by jigging right on the bottom in 170-240 feet of water.  Check the statistics in the Mack Days webpage to see just how productive this fishing technique can be.  The lake trout are moving into somewhat shallower water now, but are still pretty deep.  Towards the end of June the lake whitefish should come into shallow water(50-70 feet) to eat baby perch, which produces a very fun fishing opportunity from then until early September.  The Lake Whitefish action was pretty disappointing in the summer of 2019, but great for several summers before that.

Flathead Lake is a big lake with long reaches, and big storms and waves can brew up quite quickly on the lake and create problems even for large motorboats.  For example, if you're fishing in the Narrows area, and the wind comes up from the north, pretty quickly you will be in waves with a two second interval which are higher than the horizon and which crash over the bow of your kayak, which built up in the 20 miles of lake to the north of the Narrows. Check several weather predictions (Windfinder is one of my favorites), and be selective about the conditions in which you venture onto Flathead Lake in a kayak.  If the conditions look like they could become at all rowdy, stick to small lakes in the area.

Thanks for the info Pete. I'm going to be based out of Big Fork, and will likely be primarily land based. The family cabin supposedly has an old row boat and a small motor that hasn't been started in a while, so I may take a peak there.

Ill check out the tackle shops in Kalispell and see wait the folks there are saying. I have some standard flies and some basic trout gear but am happy to buy some new stuff.

Also, I hear you on the weather. I doubt I'll make it down to the narrows, but that's a good thing to know.

Thanks for the info Pete. I'm going to be based out of Big Fork, and will likely be primarily land based. The family cabin supposedly has an old row boat and a small motor that hasn't been started in a while, so I may take a peak there.

Ill check out the tackle shops in Kalispell and see wait the folks there are saying. I have some standard flies and some basic trout gear but am happy to buy some new stuff.

Also, I hear you on the weather. I doubt I'll make it down to the narrows, but that's a good thing to know.

The Mack Days webpage has excellent information about catching lake trout in Flathead Lake. The videos are excellent, and the brochures (referred to as "companion PDFs" in the webpage) are even better.  In some areas around Flathead Lake you can fish effectively for lake trout by casting out from the shore or docks, particularly in the fall as lake trout move into shallow water in preparation for spawning. 
 
Be very cautious about using the rowboat on Flathead Lake, particularly if there is any question about the reliability of its motor.  You'll have problems with big waves in the Bigfork area when the wind is blowing from the south.

Thanks for the info Pete. I'm going to be based out of Big Fork, and will likely be primarily land based. The family cabin supposedly has an old row boat and a small motor that hasn't been started in a while, so I may take a peak there.

Ill check out the tackle shops in Kalispell and see wait the folks there are saying. I have some standard flies and some basic trout gear but am happy to buy some new stuff.

Also, I hear you on the weather. I doubt I'll make it down to the narrows, but that's a good thing to know.

The Mack Days webpage has excellent information about catching lake trout in Flathead Lake. The videos are excellent, and the brochures (referred to as "companion PDFs" in the webpage) are even better.  In some areas around Flathead Lake you can fish effectively for lake trout by casting out from the shore or docks, particularly in the fall as lake trout move into shallow water in preparation for spawning. 
 
Be very cautious about using the rowboat on Flathead Lake, particularly if there is any question about the reliability of its motor.  You'll have problems with big waves in the Bigfork area when the wind is blowing from the south.

I'll check out the Mack Days site. Thanks for the tip. I was reading your posts on the MT section of NWKA, you got some great fish! I'm going to be very careful with the rowboat, and am expecting to find that the outboard is seized up or hasn't been started in 10+ years.

I'll look at some shore based angling options near me and see what I can find.

Check out the small lakes in the area such as Echo Lake, which has lake whitefish and other species.

Any advice for fishing for whitefish and macks? I fish salt 99% of the time, and have only fished fresh a small handful of times while backpacking. Mostly throwing spinners aside from the 2-3 times I've tried to fly fish.

Any advice for fishing for whitefish and macks? I fish salt 99% of the time, and have only fished fresh a small handful of times while backpacking. Mostly throwing spinners aside from the 2-3 times I've tried to fly fish.

When are you going to be visiting Flathead Lake?

Any advice for fishing for whitefish and macks? I fish salt 99% of the time, and have only fished fresh a small handful of times while backpacking. Mostly throwing spinners aside from the 2-3 times I've tried to fly fish.

When are you going to be visiting Flathead Lake?

I leave this coming Monday and will be up there about a month total.

The lake trout fishing will be good all month.  I caught 17 of them today, including a 32"-33" fish which I released.  They are moving into shallower water.  Areas at 170-240 which were packed with lake trout a couple of weeks about are emptying out, and I''m finding them in 120-150.  They'll be in shallower water by the end of June.  By the end of June you can hope to start catching lake whitefish in 50-70 feet of water, feeding on baby perch.  You may pick up some lake trout at the same depth, doing the same thing.

In an earlier post, I recommended that you check out the videos and brochures which are on the Mack Days website.  They will be very useful.  You fish for lake whitefish the same way that you jig for lake trout, right on the bottom, but with much smaller jigs and with small flies, because lake whitefish have quite small mouths.

You can get a feel for the topography of the lake by looking at the Navionics web app, https://webapp.navionics.com/?lang=en#boating@8&key=wclcHrnvvT.  However, in a lake this big, a fishfinder with GPS and underwater maps is a key to lake trout fishing success.  For lake whitefish, GPS maps are less essential.  You can get an idea where the 50-70 foot contour line is located by reviewing the Navionics web app, and can find that depth and fish it with only sonar.

But if all you have is a rowboat, I suggest you be very cautious about venturing out onto Flathead Lake, and consider limiting yourself to the smaller lakes in the area. 

Awesome. I should be getting in tomorrow evening and will start getting a lay of the land the next day. I brought a FF with me (bought one for my kayak, but didn't have time to install it) and will see what the rowboat situation is. Hoping to temporarily mount it if I can.

The Mack Days site is really useful, thanks for the recommendation. I brought some general gear and will see what local shops say with regards to gear.

Also, have you ever fished for pike in that area? It sounds like fun.

The lake trout are definitely coming into shallower water.  I caught a bunch today in the 100-150 foot range.

There are lots of pike in the sloughs in the Flathead River above Flathead Lake, and they come out into the delta area, but there are amazingly few pike in the rest of the lake. I'm not sure why.  Check out the short and very interesting article on the "Long-Tern Effects of Non-Native Species Introductions into Flathead Lake" which is at http://mtprof.msun.edu/Fall2012/ellis.html.  There are so few pike in Flathead Lake that the article doesn't list them as a species which is in the lake .

Woke up this morning and decided to head to the dock and throw a line in the water while everyone else was just waking up. Second cast I hooked into something sizeable! I was throwing a small Kastmaster (gold and red) with a cheap hook, and I got the fish 5' from the dock before it popped off. Got my line up and it had bent the hook out.

Not sure what it was, but looked to be about 14"+ and silver. Put up a good fight. I tried casting around the area for a while and nada.

Spent the rest of the morning/afternoon checking out the rowboat here, cleaning it, and dropping it in the water. A little water came in when I sat in it, but it seems fine. The outboard looks to be in good shape, and has been stored in a shed on stand. That's my goal tomorrow, is to get fuel and see if it works. If not, there's a pretty nice canoe here.

Fished during the late afternoon and snagged this nice trout. Hoping tomorrow's hail/thunder skips past us.

Meant to post that yesterday but the pics I was trying to attach were making the site angry.

Man, you weren't kidding about these storms blowing in! I keep thinking of taking this canoe out while waiting to get the outboard here fixed, and it's hard to find a gap of reliable good weather.