THE YELLOWSTONE river- AKA - "THE STONE":
The Yellowstone is our largest freestone river. It has enough good trout water to float for a week and never see the same stretch twice. The Yellowstone is a great hopper river, but the good fishing can begin as early as April and May. Spring streamer fishing in April is a good option on warmer days but the first good dry fly action usually begins just before the runoff at the end of May for the Mother’s Day caddis hatch. This is one occasion when bugs can be so thick that you may question whether you can see the water at all or if you are only seeing a blanket of caddis. However, due to its close proximity to the snowmelt, the Mother's Day hatch can be hard to hit without having the river blow out and when the Yellowstone blows out, it goes big. It is not uncommon for the Yellowstone to reach flows up to, and beyond, 20 thousand cubic feet per second. Consequently, spring fishing on the Stone can be a very difficult to time because it is simply not a safe fishing option until the flows drop back down to around nine thousand cubic feet per second.
The Yellowstone (some years) can be fishable as early as the end of June but could continue to rage until early August. The best way to find out what is in store is to give us a call and we can usually make some predictions based on snow pack reports and weather trends. The Yellowstone has a reputation as a great hopper fishing river and many years it is justified. A good day in August on the Stone can be some of the best hopper fishing we see all year. If the fish are not looking up look out for whitefish, the Yellowstone has near biblical numbers of them and they are on a mission to eat anything you put under a bobber!