As many of you know, the browns have been on the prowl, looking for larger “buggy” nymphs, buggers, and streamers.  Many guides are throwing darker colors which show up better from a distance, as well as some flashy flies like the sparkle minnow, tomb raider, or their own home ties.  You can get away with…

While visibility is still not great, right around a foot in town, the Yellowstone River continues to steadily drop. The river is currently flowing at 9940 in Livingston this morning.  We have clients out on the Yellowstone this week and they have done fairly well with some bigger 20″ fish being caught.  With the clarity…

If you’ve fished the Yellowstone before, you’ve probably heard the saying “green is good.”  The Yellowstone is finally coming into shape and is now more green than brown.  During these conditions we fish bigger flies, usually black nymphs or flashy streamers which show up better in the water.  While you may not boat 40 fish…

The Yellowstone River is getting  close, we expect it to start fishing well in about 5 days.  There were boats out on the water this weekend despite the visibility on the water below 6 inches and some fish being caught.  The current cfs as of this morning is 11,700 cfs. We are getting to close…

Still some stoneflies on the upper Madison right now, (near and above Lyon’s bridge).  Salmonflies, goldenstone, sallies, plus a mix of caddis in the evenings.  Dry fly fishing has been a little slower than nymph fishing, but those who are willing to commit to dry fly only have been catching some nice ones…  

The Madison River continues to fish very well with hatches of salmonflies, golden stones, caddis and yellow sallies, all of which have the trout on the feed. The PMD hatch has slowed up on the spring creeks, but look for size 18 -20 duns and spinner falls throughout the day. Also look for hatches of…

We’ve heard that the PMD hatch has already peaked and numbers are going down, but I was out there guiding clients on 7/11 and found a variety of bugs coming off… Even as early as 8:30 in the morning we saw PMD’s emerging.   Also coming down the pipe during the day were size 16 caddis,…

With visibility at almost two feet on the Madison, the surface action with Salmonflies has become quite good.  The big bugs should be up to palisades by today.  While the fish are looking up at a more consistent rate, fishing underneath will provide with the best shot at numbers.  Big black bugs, such as the…

We have been getting quite a few calls and emails about the Yellowstone River oil spill over the past few days.  The spill happened a long way down river from us here in Livingston, just outside of Billings, almost a two drive down river.  The productive areas for trout fishing were not affected at all…

The Spring Creeks continue to be the main attraction in the area with consistent PMD emergences bringing trout to the surface daily.  Sawyer p tails, no hackles, floating nymphs and spinners will cover the hatch well. It looks like the Yellowstone River finally peaked last Thursday/Friday just under 40,000 cfs in Livingston.  Hopefully the hot…