2009 Guide Year in Review

2009 may have been a tough year for the economy, but it was an awesome year to be on the Yellowstone! Both clients and guides were slamming big browns left and right, especially in the Spring before runoff hit.  A 24" inch brown was caught on mother's day, during the caddis hatch (see older posts at bottom of blog).  Several other nice browns were caught through town on caddis dry flies by many of our clients.  The salmonfly hatch could have been better on the Yellowstone, but you won't find us complaining about plenty of water.   We had one of the best hopper summers in years!  The fish were looking up and only until the end of the season did we start seeing refusals.  As long as you got a long dead drift and waited a moment before you striked, you were in business!  The Fall was really the only slower season for us this year, no doubt due to the abrupt "light switch" flip of cold weather.  The creeks fished awesome so far this winter, baetis have been coming off regularly, but streamers were also working well for us.  Read on to check out each season in more detail...    

Early season fishing this year was par excellente on the Yellowstone, Spring creeks, and area lakes.  Spring weather in Montana is typically a mix of nice warm days and cold snowy nastiness, and good fishing.  The Yellowstone was great as usual in April, good hatches of Baetis, March Browns, and Mother’s Day Caddis, along with some great streamer and nymph fishing.  Anglers willing to brave the changeable weather and river conditions were treated to some great early season fishing.  Our guides got some lucky anglers into some really big brown trout in April, a few of them into the 24-26” range.  Stillwater fishing was red hot during the months of April and May with a lot of really big fish caught.  I had one day in May after the Yellowstone blew out with 8 fish over 24”!  The Spring Creeks had great early season Baetis hatches from Mid March to Early May.

Early July on the Madison was good with some stellar Salmonfly and Golden stone hatches and some big fish looking to eat big bugs.  The Yellowstone got clean enough to fish around the 20th of July, but the Salmonflies had already come and gone for the most part.  We were able to chase these big bugs into the park which was fun but required some tough hikes.  One interesting thing we saw above Yankee Jim during salmonfly season was a dead grizzly in an edie.  You know there's got to be a good story behind that!  Fish were still taking yellow sallies, caddis, and goldenstones up high well into late July.  Not a lot of big fish up here, but gorgeous scenery and tons of native cutthroat. 

The great hopper fishing in August more than made up for it.  For the second year in a row, we had incredible hopper fishing in August.  We didn't have any late freezes in the spring, so there were a lot more hoppers flying around the banks of the Stone.  We had a lot of happy clients who caught lots of nice fish on hoppers and big dries all the way through September.  Water levels were perfect on the Yellowstone, so the water temperature never got too hot.  The Northeast area of Yellowstone Park fished great though the heat of the summer with great dry fly fishing on Slough, Lamar, and Soda Butte.  Drake hatches were great and lasted through September, making for some great dry fly fishing for some great Cutthroats.

Fall fishing was a bit of a mixed bag in our area; unseasonably warm weather through September made us wonder if fall weather would ever get here.  In early October, that question was answered with big dump of snow and sub zero temperatures.  In a matter of days the weather changed from highs in the 70s, to highs in the 20s!  Talk about a shock to the system!  From mid October to November, the weather became more typical and fall fishing was good overall.  The Madison inside Yellowstone Park received a great run of lake running fish from Hebgen, and we had a few clients get into some big rainbows and browns. 

All in all 2009 was a great season, we’d like to thank all of our guided clients who patronized the Yellowstone Angler this year, as well as our guides who racked up long hours and many, many miles in order to get people into fish and show them a good time.

Give Doug a call at the shop to reserve your favorite guides, as the top guide's schedules are already starting to fill with rollover dates.  It's never too early to secure a couple days with your favorite guides.  Don't worry, if you're schedule fills up, you can always get a full refund so long as you cancel 30 days ahead of your trip.  The key to good fishing starts with putting it down on your calendar!