Fly Fishing the Yellowstone River

Fly fishing the Yellowstone River was the next stop on this year’s fly fishing road trip after the Madison River. We’ve fished this section in previous years and hoped to see dry fly action with Golden Stones and Green Drakes.

In the image above, I’m casting to a fish I saw rising to something. It might have been a Salmonfly because we observed both Salmonflies and Golden Stones flying over the water. We had seen several floating downstream with the current.

And all the empty shucks made us keep an eye out for more stoneflies.

Watching for rising trout is tough on the Yellowstone. Cutthroat barely make a ring when eating some of the insects floating downriver. Of course, you’ll occasionally see an aggressive rise and know a trout is eager to eat…perhaps on your fly!

Our plan was to camp at Bridge Bay campground for three nights, but we arrived a few days early to see if there was any dry fly action.

Upon arriving at the river in the early afternoon, we sat on the bank and watched for the telltale signs of fish rising and eating insects.

There were a handful of fly fishers watching the water and not casting and I decided not to join them. I’d rather watch for awhile. My prior experience taught me I didn’t have luck with fish rising to my fly if they weren’t actively looking up. Why waste all those false casts?

While finding a nice spot to sit, a fly fisher was walking downstream looking for a spot to fish. He was headed to the spot in front of me. He paused, wondering if I was fishing or planning to fish and I encouraged him to fish the water.

We engaged in conversation over the next hour or so while he fished or took a brief pause for the fish to resume rising. He told me he didn’t have any Stonefly imitations and that’s what the fish were rising to. So I walked to the campervan, retrieved my Stonefly box and shared a couple of flies with him. That’s how I met Brent.

Dancingtrout and I ended up pointing out a few rising trout! Yes, several fish began to rise and we eagerly encouraged him to cast to them. One or two rose to a fly I had given him, a Clark’s Lady Stone – Salmonfly, but he didn’t hook up. I think he finally changed to a foam fly in his box and hooked a fish and brought it to the net.

Brent is a strong guy and I’d guess the trout was around 20 inches. It looks small in Brent’s hands!

His smile tells you everything you need to know about catching these special Yellowstone Cutthroat trout!

That evening, we drove out the east entrance to the Park towards Cody, WY, camping only a few miles from the boundary.

We were up early the next day, driving back into the Park with the hopes of finding wildlife.

As luck would have it, we found a “bear jam” at Nine Mile. It’s a spot where the road meets Yellowstone Lake driving in from the east entrance, a few miles from Fishing Bridge. We stopped there in previous years and watched grizzly bears and this year we were lucky to find Snow, an actively eating grizzly. We watched her for about an hour.

She stopped long enough to scratch an itch on her back.

After awhile, she wandered into the trees and didn’t come out.

We stopped by the same spot several days later, but luck wasn’t on our side.

We fished three more days on the Yellowstone during the week and had mixed results.

One day, I had three fish to the fly, hooked and landed one.

Dancingtrout landed one Yellowstone Cutthroat in the evening which measured between 21 and 22 inches.

This is why we return to the river. They are special trout!

I hooked and landed one more about 18 inches with a tag in its dorsal fin. As bad luck would have it, the fish exploded and I wasn’t able to get a picture of the tag or the fish.

We used a Clark’s Lady Stone – Salmonfly, Sparkle Dun PMD, and a Callibaetis Spinner to raise fish. Those flies imitated the insects we had seen floating down the river. As I mentioned, most of the rises were subtle and a little guess work went into selecting flies. I tried a Green Drake, but no fish were interested.

Over the four days we fished the river, I must have risen 9 or 10 fish to my fly, but was only able to hook and land 2. I spent quite a bit of time watching the river and my mind wandered. I struggled with the question…is it more difficult to get a fish rise to your fly or hook one? Clearly, the answer to this question is obvious for the days I fished the river. But what do your think?

One afternoon, we stopped at LeHardy Rapids to see if we could find any Yellowstone Cutthroats in the small pools used for them to pass upstream in the rapids.

There were two or three fish in a small pool and we watched them as a Golden Stone floated downstream and a fish rose to eat it. I decided to capture the moment and Dancingtrout found a live bug and threw it into the water. Yes, the fish ate it. We met a family and showed them what we were doing. The college-aged kids searched for Golden Stones and threw them in. I set my Nikon Z 6iii to precapture mode and held the shutter down. The video below is the result of stiching 156 images together to make this short video.

Did you notice how the fish missed the fly on the first pass? It turns and quickly finds the natural and eats it.

The sequence below shows the Yellowstone Cutthroat missing the stonefly.

After I reviewed my photographs, I didn’t feel so bad about missing fish. Evidently, they misjudge the angle of approach in the various currents in the river…but I still wish my hook-up rate was better!!

One afternoon, we drove to the northeast corner of the Park and the Lamar Valley hoping to fish a section we have fished in previous years. But this sign changed our minds…

The following day driving in from Cooke City/Silver Gate and the northeast entrance, bison were everywhere along Soda Butte and the Lamar.

Nevertheless, we had a relaxing time even if we didn’t land many trout fly fishing the Yellowstone River as much as we planned and the trout which rose to my fly chose not to get hooked.

I did find a few more photography subjects for me driving through the Lamar Valley and Hayden Valley.

Enjoy…go fish!