Yellowstone River Fishing Report – May 17, 2022

Yellowstone River Fishing Report – May 17, 2022

And so it begins. The river has spiked in the last few days and we are currently experiencing a window of dirty water. Looking at the charts, we have made significant daily spikes across the Upper Yellowstone watershed. We are beginning to experience the start of the runoff season. Warmer day temperatures are melting snow at lower elevations. On the other hand, it is great to see the current snowpack stats! The Upper Yellowstone watershed can still use all it can get but we are excited to see it at 104% for today.

 

 

We are entering the phase we like to refer to as, the Yo-yo- stone. There may be brief windows of fishing if we get a big cool down with below freezing night time temps for multiple days. The Mother’s Day Caddis will slow down after the big hatch we just had. Your best bet will be trying to fish large stoneflies and nymphs if and when there are windows of cleaner water. You also will likely be able to find some fish on streamers.

Recommended nymphs: #8 Pats Rubber Legs, #8 Zirdle Bug, #12-14 Pheasant Tail, #12-14 Prince Nymph

Recommended Streamers: Mini-Dungeon, Home Invader, Complex Bugger, Wooly Bugger

If you are looking to find more consistent fishing, we are fortunate to have local private water available. The Paradise Valley Spring Creeks are a great place to go when you are looking for clear water. On calm over cast days, the creeks should still have decent BWO as well as midge hatches to take advantage of.  Subsurface the spring creeks also have good populations of sow bugs and scuds.

Recommended Patterns:  Tungsten zebra midge black or olive, Single scoop midge pupa, Sawyer PT olive, Mitchell split case BWO nymph, Harrop CDC transitional midge, Harrop CDC adult midge, Blue Ribbon’s Scotty Midge, Cripple Thor BWO, Natural Sow, Spring creek scud.

Regional lakes are starting to have solid fishing as well. Slow stripping leaches is always a good bet as hungry trout are cruising around. As the water temps start to increase, the callibaetis and chironomid fishing will also increase. Look for chironomods in the shallow edges of the bank to see if they are about. On a calm day, you will see callibaetis to emerge if you are lucky! Fishing gulpers on the lake is hard to beat!

Recommended Patterns: McKnight’s Pig Pen, Brunette Leach, Carey Special, Sheep Creek, Chan’s BMW, Rowley’s Balanced Leech, Yankee buzzers, Schrantz’s Callibaetis nymph, Nyman’s DOA Callibaetis cripple, Harrop’s CDC Thorax Dun Callibaetis

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