Yellowstone 2007
By admin in Montana Fly Fishing | 1 comment
We floated the Yellowstone River at the end of August. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with us. There was a huge thunderstorm as we entered Bozeman, Montana the day before our float. As we put our boat in the water we noticed that the water was murky…only about 1 foot of visibility.
The summer in Montana has been extremely hot with very little rain. In fact, many of the rivers had limited access for fisherman. Anyway, we tried to see if we might catch some trout.
We fished hoppers; spanking the bank, nymphs with droppers of pheasant tails and copper johns, a dry and a nymph and various other combinations to no avail. We only caught a few fish that were very small.
I’d love to find out from others if this is unusual based on the time of year and the weather or if we were doing something wrong with our approach.
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Jack Hill | Sep 23, 2007 | Reply
Montana had a poor snow year with the exception of the Big Horn mountains. The Little Big Horn River (Custer?) flooded because of the high snowpack in the Horn mountains.
The snowpack in the rest of the state melted fast. Right now the Yellowstone at Livingston is at 1400 feet second. Two years ago it was at 2900.
It was hot in Montana until a few weeks ago. Hence the river closures. The fish are down low and especially the big ones. As
the weather cools the next few weeks the fishing will improve. The best fishing in Montana maybe April before the runoff and September October.
When it rains in Yellowstone park it sends a MUDFLOW down the stone for over 100 miles. It probably rained on the Lamar river in YNP before you got there.
Want to catchh a big trout in Montana? Forget fly fishng and sink a big night crawler or bullhead down deep. Bigger trout want meat not little bugs. More food and less work!