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Last Updated: 4/20/2009 by James Anderson

The Yellowstone | Spring Creeks | Waters we fish | Guide Services

Bighorn & Missouri | CFS @ Corwin Springs | CFS @ Carter's

Yellowstone River

The city of Livingston has taken out the cement pilings on the 9th street bridge, which has changed the run below quite a bit...

Click here for more recent Yellowstone photos

The Yellowstone gained some visibility through town today. That same "green is good" water should be down low tomorrow. The shield's has been kicking in a little mud here and there. Call us at the shop to find out where the best window of clear water is, and where to avoid the plugs of mud. We're still seeing baetis on the water, with a few sporadic risers throughout the day.

The Trout Unlimited River Clean up was another successful year. Plenty of tires, heavy metal, cans, bottles, plastic, steering wheels, styrofoam, and misc. trash were removed on both sides of the river from Gardiner to Columbus. In addition to the normal things, there were a couple of interesting items, including a twin tipped Rossignol ski, a broken safe, an old fridge, a huge city garbage can, and a couple a big metal barrels and beat up canoes. The prize of the day however, has be a 6x7 winter kill bull elk found on an island!

A big thanks to everyone who came out and gave us a helping hand! We had 37 boats on the water (8 more than last year) and 109 volunteers before counting any walkers. CMR kicked out 204 lunches for everyone and the band played well into the late afternoon...

HATCHES

Although there are a ton midges on the water, the fish are taking baetis duns and emergers more than anything else. The baetis are small, about a size 18-20. One of Harrop's baetis no hackles or sparkle duns would be the perfect match. A small batwing baetis was also catching them left and right, but Mcknight's ocular baetis nymph has been the winner for us. You may get lucky and see some March Browns down low. They are quite a bit larger, about a size #14 - 16. There are also hordes of caddis hibernating in their shucks, just waiting for the water temperature to rise. Also under the rocks are plenty of goldenstones, sculpin, and a few salmonfly nymphs. The sculpin are starting to turn more olive again, but the black patterns show up better in water with less clarity.

RECOMMENDED FLIES

Red serendipity #14-16

René Harrop's baetis no hackle #18-20

René Harrop's baetis sparkle dun #18-20

Dave Student's thin olive baetis #16-18

Parachute March Brown #14-16

Parachute Hare's Ear #14-16

Parachute Adams #14-18

Brown Pat's Rubberlegs #8-12

Strom's Stone #10-12

Beadheads (whatever) #12-14

Otter's Soft Milk Eggs #12

Black leadeye buggers #2-4

Bow River Buggers #4-6

Black Woolhead sculpin #2

Black Sculpzilla #4

Black Circus Peanut #2

Double Bunnies #2-4

White Home Invader #2

White Zonkers #2-4

JJ Specials #4

Spring Creeks

New stream reclamation on Nelson's Spring Creek promises to

provide better fishing and more fishable water for 2009.

Article and Photos by George Anderson

Nelson’s Spring Creek, seven miles South of Livingston has always had the reputation as one of the finest true Spring Creeks in the US. But even the best spring creeks are prone to siltation over the years, which decrease water depth, providing fewer places for trout to hide. The silt also dramatically decreases the amount of insect life, like the intense mayfly hatches that have made these streams so famous.

Now that these streams are protected by rock rip-rap along the Yellowstone they no longer get periodic flushing flows from the Yellowstone River have helped to blow all this silt out. Of course those years that the Yellowstone flooded into the spring creeks caused a huge amount of damage and even threatened to wipe out the spring creeks altogether. Good, well designed rip-rap projects and levees have helped to contain the river but now this siltation, caused mostly by waterfowl in the winter, has threatened these wonderful streams and if nothing was done, the quality of fishing would continue to decline.

Continue George's article...

If you're fishing the creeks this week, try to pick an overcast day with less wind. You should see a nice baetis hatch throughout the middle of the day with plenty of trout snouts feeding through the different stages of the hatch. If you're stuck with a brighter day, focus on site fishing with small nymphs, being sure to adjust your weight for each run. A miracle nymph, olive midge larva, or sparkle scud would all be good bright day flies. On bright days you can also stay late and fish the evening with a small streamer or sculpin before calling it quits.

Please watch out for the redds, as we need as many new wild trout returning to the Yellowstone as possible.

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

Armstrong's Spring Creek

DePuy's Spring Creek

Nelson's Spring Creek

Thoughts on fishing redds

What do redds look like?

HATCHES

The baetis have finally been stating to come off, but not in huge numbers. If you get a nice non-windy cloudy day (keep those fingers crossed with Livingston) the possibility for an epic day is certainly there. Otherwise you'll probably get as much action on your midge dropper as your baetis dry if not more. Flip over some rocks and see what's under them. You'll see how many baetis nymphs are around, plus a bunch of olive/grey scuds, leeches, stoneflies, and cranefly larva. Don't forget to bring some eggs as your ace up the sleeve.

RECOMMENDED FLIES

Black Zebra midges #18

Olive midge larva #18

Dave Student midge emergers #18-20

René Harrop Light Grey CDC Midge Emerger #20

René Harrop Grey CDC Adult Midge #20

René Harrop Grey CDC Hanging Midge #20

René Harrop's baetis no hackle #18-20

René Harrop's baetis sparkle dun #18-20

Dave Student's thin olive baetis #16-18

Tan (grey) Sparkle scuds #18

Olive Sparkle scuds #18

Pink Sparkle scuds #18

Red Mini San Juan Worm #16-18

Otter's Soft Milk Eggs #14

Orange Ray Charles #18

Bighorn sow bugs #18

Black leadeye buggers #6

Bow River Buggers #6-8

Rag Sculpins #4

Pig Pen Leeches #8

Brown Home Invader #6

Bighorn and Missouri

Baetis and midges have been coming off on both of these tailwaters, making for some incredible dry fly fishing on overcast days. Not as many folks are fishing tiny dries to big fish, so if you're dialed into this game you can seriously turns some heads. If the hatch isn't happening it's probably windy or sunny. No worries, time to grab your nymph rod. I've been using my Winston BIIx 7 weight because it adds such a nice nymph "fling" to my lob shot. A 9 foot leader should be fine for most anglers, rigging your indicator (or balloon) 1 - 4 feet above your first nymph, depending on the river's depth and speed. Green scuds have been a hot topic on the Horn. My typical starter rig would be a Bighorn sow bug followed by a baetis short wing emerger or dark midge larva pattern. For the MO, think pink or orange scuds. There are more browns in the river than rainbows now, so don't be afraid to drag something nasty behind the boat...

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

Bighorn Trout Shop

Missouri Trout Shop

Tailwaters Near and Far

Book a guide

HATCHES

Although you can expect to see plenty of baetis and midges, this time of year most anglers do best by deep nymphing with extremely long drifts. Try a variety of pink scuds, Bighorn sowbugs, zebra midges, various worm patterns, green scuds, and who could resist - streamers. If you're not into fish on the Horn, check your weight and add a split shot or two. If you're not into fish on the MO you might have to start learning your big runs and buckets better because it is a much bigger (and tougher to learn) tailwater. If you are not that familiar the MO, you should probably stop in the Trout Shop for some flies and advice.