Yellowstone River Fishing Report for April 24

Good fishing was had this past weekend. River conditions are still considerably elevated in flows from what one would typically expect for late April, but clarity is good and improving each day. It’s still green and there’s a good 2 feet of viz when looking at the river off the banks a little bit. Fish are active from mid morning through the afternoons. The cool, wet, and cloudy weather continues with a day or two of broken sun here and there. Picture here shows a heck of a nice day- one of the very few we’ve had as of late. Also shows a nice Yellowstone brown. On the cloudier days one might expect to see Baetis or Blue Winged Olives as well as some March Brown mayflies both in the mid PM times. Sun comes out—- maybe not so much. Though the March Browns will be more likely to come off in the sun than the Baetis. Mornings are good with a fairly deep nymph rig. Think anywhere from 5 to 7 feet from weight to indicators. As the water warms a bit and you are finding that action picking up, you can shorten things a bit. Not uncommon that if you don’t get some dry fly action by 2 and are sticking with the nymphs that you can be short on the weight to Indy- like 3 feet short. Streamer guys still seemed to be locked on the fact that this is THE way to catch Yellowstone April fish. It’s been OK. One day pretty good. Others, not so much… Dry fly folks will find that the cloudier days are going to be considerably better than the bright ones. Again, windows of opportunity for the dries tends to be just after lunch through till evening. Everyone’s starting to ask- when might we see caddis. Guessing we’re still a couple weeks out…

Scroll to Top