Eric Adams had the fortune of fishing with Doug MacDonald and Darcy Cook of Granite Sports Medicine in Livingston who both took advantage of our Spring Fling Guide Rates. We spent our day on the Yellowstone River and overall we landed a mixed bag of about 25 Rainbow, Brown and Cutthroat trout with several in the 16 inch range. All of the trout looked as though the wintered well and appeared extremely healthy. Overall a great spring day of uncrowded fishing.
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Weather & River Conditions:
The past couple weeks have seen some crazy weather from highs in the 60’s nearly two weeks ago to highs in the teens as little as 5 days ago. Mix in a couple white-out blizzards and you’ve got a typical Montana Spring. The weather cooperated as the highs were in the mid-50s with overcast skies until early afternoon. The wind was present, but tolerable at about 10 mph from the WSW. The Yellowstone River is low and relatively clear with a couple feet of visibility. The current flow is about 1,400 cfs which is low for this time of year, but mostly due to the recent cold conditions. Keep this low flow in mind as many of the usual foam holes are not in place with the lower water levels. Water temperatures yesterday reached 50 degrees and the trout were very feisty.
Fishing Strategy:
Baetis and midges where the ticket yesterday and we did see several caddis hatching in the afternoon, but the trout didn’t focus on them as the numbers weren’t there. Our most effective strategy was short-leash nymphing dropping a CDC Pheasant Tail Nymph (sz 16) below a Tungsten Zebra Midge (sz 18). Concentrate on the areas behind corners and point barbs where the foam collects and get ready to hook up.
Yesterday we did not work streamers very hard, but have heard some very good reports in the past few days of some very big fish being caught.
Yellowstone River Caddis Update:
As we mentioned we did see about a dozen of the Mother’s Day Caddis, so they are getting ready to pop. the magic water temperature to see full emergence is usually 54 degrees. With the warm weather predicted we predict a good hatch by this weekend. Stay tuned we’ll keep you posted as we’ll be on the river over the next several days.
