Parks Fly Shop Trip Diary Yellowstone Fishing Reports

YNP Opener, Gardner River

May 28, Ben, Wilson, Walter

We tend to be homebodies at Parks' Fly Shop, so with the YNP opener coming after several cold days, all of us decided to stick to the northern part of the park rather than joining the traditional Firehole Opening Day Circus. Ben and Wilson had their planned all-day jaunt to the Lower Meadow of Slough and the Yellowstone at Tower Falls nipped in the bud by a rockslide that closed the northern end of the Grand Loop road for several hours today, and instead wound up fishing the Gardner from above Boiling River all the way down to below the Rescue Creek footbridge, though they skipped several stretches. Walter skipped out of shop duty after lunch and spent around an hour and forty-five minutes fishing the lower Gardner from the confluence with the Yellowstone up to just upstream of the entrance station.

Everyone had solid fishing. Ben and Wilson found larger but far fewer fish upstream of Boiling River, with bigger numbers below and especially in the Chinese Gardens stretch near the MT-WY border bridge. This is a section that ONLY fishes well early and late in the season, since the water is easy to access and very "fishy-looking," and thus receives probably half the total pressure the Gardner receives in its lower five miles. Being the first anglers on it, Ben and Wilson did quite well. Each tallied somewhere around fifty trout over about seven hours on the water, with the largest fish landed being a cutt-bow around 17 inches. Wilson also hooked and lost one of the wraith-like late-spawning rainbows that very occasionally pops up early in the season on the Gardner. This one was a fish Wilson estimated at 20-22 inches, though he'll never know for sure. A few seasons ago Matt Minch caught a rainbow that taped out at over 24 inches just after the opener, so such toads are in there, though usually you'll only get a shot at one every three or four seasons, even if you fish the Gardner hard like we do.

Things started off slower for Walter, as he found few fish in the steep, fast section immediately above the Yellowstone confluence. Some 500 yards upstream of the confluence where the river flattens out somewhat and some larger pockets are present, his luck turned around and he wound up catching about a dozen fish in total, all but a couple in the last hour. His best was a brown about thirteen inches and he quit on a fish, always a good way to start the season.

The top-producing fly for everyone was a #4-6 Black Minch's Stone. Other flies that produced were #12 BH Prince, #12 Four Feather, and #12 Bead, Hare, and Copper nymphs. Streamers, San Juan Worms, and dry flies did not produce, though there were enough large (#16) Baetis mayflies around and about two feet of visibility, so this was somewhat surprising.

This good early season fishing on the Gardner cannot possibly last. Frankly, we wouldn't be writing this report if we expected it to stay good, because we didn't have much competition today and it's always nice to keep it that way. With heavy rain in the forecast for tomorrow afternoon and Monday, followed by a warmup into the high 70s by midweek, the upper elevation snowpack in the Gardner drainage is going to cut loose in a big way and blow the river out completely for at least a couple weeks. By Thursday we expect the Gardner to be flowing at over twice its current volume with the color and even nearly the consistency of pan gravy. It was sure nice to get on it before that mess hits.

Upper Story Lake, April 21

April 22, Walter Wiese

Ben, Mike Leach, and I hit upper Story Lake for our spring "check run" to prepare for spring guided lake trips. These lakes are at their best in May and most just iced-out within the last couple weeks, so it's always nice to get up at least once before the guiding season starts to see how the fish did over the winter.

In short, they did really well. We fished for less than two hours and were limited to fishing from shore because there were still a couple short snow drifts covering the road that the trucks could get through but which bogged down the boat trailer. Extricating the trailer from the first drift after trying to ram through and having the trailer fishtail deeper into the drift, pulling the truck along for the ride, was one reason for the short trip. No, didn't take a picture of that muddy process. Despite the short day and lack of a boat (from which we do most of our guiding on the private lakes), we got around 15 fish to the bank between us, with Ben the top rod. About a half-dozen more were lost, and I know I personally missed at least three.

All of the fish ran 16-23 inches, with most around 19. The first picture of Ben posted below is an average fish. This was the first we caught, though I lost a good one right off the bat. The most productive technique was fishing a large (#2-4), drab black streamer with just a hint of flash on a floating line, fishing it with either a slow twitch retrieve about 15-20 feet from shore, especially where the wind ran parallel to the bank, or by casting directly to spotted fish laying in shallow water. About half of the fish came from 18" or shallower water, 2/3 of these with the flies under an indicator and the remainder on a sink tip. I personally had a fish follow a big Scleech into 6" of water (its dorsal was out) before taking. This is the fish pictured next to the rod. Mike and I caught some fish fishing our streamers on a slow strip retrieve on the sink tips, but Ben (with the bobber) did markedly better, probably because the indicator allowed the fly to suspend and made it easy to fish long, slow retrieves without hanging up. Next on my to-buy list: a really slow full-sink line.

We believe we could have easily doubled our numbers if we'd stayed the whole day, but with the lower lake to check out and rain/snow squalls moving through, we wolfed lunch in the truck and headed off to check out the lower lake. This lake is both smaller in surface area and deeper, and it frankly just wasn't ready yet. Another couple weeks for this one.

Read more about the Story Lakes on our Guided Lake Floats page. Story and other lakes will be great bets through June and maybe even into July this year due to the high snowpack and late spring we're having, and they are notable for having solid numbers of great big fish, solitude, and scenery.

Yellowstone River 7 Miles North of Gardiner

March 21, Walter Wiese

I hit the Yellowstone about seven miles north of Gardiner between 1:00 and 3:30 today, hoping for some chunky prespawn rainbows. I didn't get as many as I have at around the same time in years past, but part of that could be the fact that winter has been holding on tighter than usual here at lower elevation. That said, I did get seven rainbows between twelve and fifteen inches, and one that was more like 17 inches, and all were fat and healthy. I also caught around a dozen whitefish.

Temperatures ranged from around 40 degrees when it was cloudy on up to close to 50 when the sun was out, with an upriver breeze that really wasn't strong enough to mess up the fishing any. The water was colder than the air, probably around forty degrees. It was cold enough to keep the fish from really fighting hot and hard, at any rate. In fact, the only "jumper" I had was the first fish I caught, which also came on my first cast. There weren't many bugs in the air or on the water, only some tiny (size 26 or so) midges that didn't interest the fish, plus some tiny winter stoneflies.

All the trout were caught on one of our top searching nymph rigs, a #6 Minch's Black Stone trailing a #12 Minch's Bead, Hare, and Copper. I fished a purple stonefly nymph for a bit after losing my whole rig, but not even a whitefish liked the purple nymph today. A Woolly Bugger fished slow may also have worked, as well as something like a black Copper John to match the little stones. I have a lot of faith in the Minch combo this time of year and stuck with it; in a week or two I'll fish a streamer with the BHC on a dropper.

All in all not a great afternoon, but solid. The spring fishing on the big river will continue to get better for about ten days or two weeks, then stay hot through April and the first part of May. One reason I stuck with the bigger nymphs rather than some kind of midge combo is that these big flies really signal that fishing season is really here: when they're willing to eat big, meaty flies in comparatively fast water, nowhere near a hot spring that can cause localized warming, it's a sure sign that spring is here and we're not just scratching up the dregs of last season, as the winter midge fishing sometimes makes it seem. It should be a great season.