The Madison is one of my favorite rivers this time of year. All along its length, the fishing is good. Flows have been up and down somewhat this week, but are stabilizing. Clarity is good, and the big bugs are out! The Salmonflies are on the Upper. Last I heard, the hatch was concentrated around [...]
June 2009
The Gallatin is shaping up. Water is dropping, and the fish are really coming to life. Clarity is up over a foot now in most places. Mark and I drove out to Williams Bridge yesterday to get a look at her, but forgot the damn camera. Salmonflies and golden stones are coming off in the [...]
We’ve been running around like chickens with our heads off the past week or so and have not been down on the lower Henry’s as we’d planned to do around the 15th. Where the hell has the month of June gone? Jake has overheard some grousing (and worse) in his store of late regarding the [...]
The ‘Root is finally beginning to fish pretty much along the whole river, though I’m spending most of my time on the West Fork still – that’s more or less my home water. Flows are settling decently, and it seems that just this past week the river and fish are beginning to settle into more [...]
Conditions are improving on the Clark Fork, though the river is still a bit away from offering what anyone would say are prime conditions. Mark and Jake are giving me a hard time about posting flow charts in all of my reports, but this time of year flow rates are critical and offer a great [...]
The Blackfoot is in great shape. Flows are coming down, the water is clearing up and there are lots of insects in the river. This is one of my personal favorite times to fish the Blackfoot. PMDs, green drakes, golden stones, caddis and Salmonflies are all coming off as of this time. Barring a short [...]
As famous a fishery as the Madison River is, few fly anglers see the Madison Dam at the head of Bear Trap Canyon. We were doing a bit of scouting (raft launch and salmon flies) on the Madison yesterday afternoon – the Dry Fly Media team is about to upgrade their raft and we’ll be [...]
Jake and I had the chance to run over to the Park on Friday afternoon; it was one of those last minute things after a business trip I had planned was cancelled at the last minute. We left Bozeman in bright sun and temps climbing through the 70s (enough to make a fat guy sweat) [...]
Flows on the Big Horn have been bumped to over 12,400 cfs as of this morning. There is a lot of water in the river right now, making wading somewhat dangerous. Be careful. With the massive amounts of water in the river right now, the fish are holding in the pockets, pools and quiet places [...]
The rains recently have caused flows from the dam to be drastically reduced. The lower water has affected fishing somewhat, but in a positive way. Water clarity is good, with visibility over a foot. Caddis and PMDs are the main hatches at this point. Both of them are producing good dry fly fishing. The fish [...]
The Big Hole is finally settling down to the seasonal average flows this week – you can see from the flow chart below it’s come way down in just a few days as the push from last week’s rain has moved through. A local fisherman who scrimped and saved to buy his first raft to [...]
The team at Park’s in Gardiner is reporting that Slough is now more green than brown; that should suggest that for those who just have to fish Slough you’ve now got a chance on streamers (think buggers) or big attractor nymphs. We’re not due big rains for a few days after the impressive rains that [...]
Still a lot of snow to come out in the high country back here – flows are still running above average as you can see. Fishable in 2 weeks?????
The Yellowstone in the Park is still up and dirty. As you can see from the flow chart, the outflow from the lake is way up. Mark and I were down in the Park yesterday afternoon on the Firehole and caught a glimpse of the Yellowstone on the way there. It is going to be [...]
The Lamar has come down a little bit over the past few days, but is still running high and dirty. If you feel that you absolutely have to fish the river, try dragging some big, buggy nymphs near the banks. Other than that, give it a little more time.
