Yellowstone in the Spring

Well after a number of good weeks float fishing the Snake, the river is now out of commission for a while due to runoff. I had some great days with guests over the past month, with fine weather and good dry fly fishing. I love fishing the Snake pre runoff. The skwalas were hatching and it was fun fishing big stonefly patterns!

Now it’s time to pivot to another favorite of mine, fishing the Firehole River. This year Yellowstone National Park opened up the Firehole, Madison and Gibbon for fishing a few weeks earlier than normal. This is great news for those of us who love fishing up in the park! The Firehole stays clear and fishes really well while most other area rivers are blown out with snow melt. Now that the south entrance road is open, I’ve been taking guests fishing up on the Firehole and it’s been great. Rainbow and Brown trout are hungry after a long winter and hatches of BWOs, PMDs and Miller Caddis have them looking up for food. When the bugs aren’t hatching, swinging soft hackle wet flies and nymphs is a great tactic. In addition to the fun fishing, we’ve been treated to a host of area animals on display during our drives. Yesterday we saw a grizzly bear on the way home putting an exclamation point on a fine day.