Worth a Try

The Yellowstone River has quite a bit of color to it this morning, but it’s not what I would call “blown out.” There’s still about a foot or so of visibility at Carter’s Bridge this morning. I saw a fish rise as I arrived. If you’re floating an area with a lot of caddis, expect to find fish up on them. Yeah, conditions are not ideal, but it’s worth a shot. And don’t forget about streamers and nymphs (including caddis pupa) if you’re not seeing fish on top at the moment.

We haven’t gotten any reports from yesterday’s fishing yet, but we had good reports of dry fly fishing from the day before, and there certainly were a bunch of caddis around near Livingston yesterday evening (my windshield can attest to that). If and when we hear anything about yesterday’s fishing, I’ll append it to the end of this post.

It didn’t get quite as hot as was expected yesterday, but there’s still a bump of higher water headed down from Corwin Springs. Today’s supposed to be a relative scorcher, so the river will continue to rise for a couple of days. The Yellowstone is predicted to peak just below 7000 cfs at Carter’s Bridge (see the graph above) on Sunday afternoon, then gradually head back down. Runoff is not here yet, according to the experts. So you may very well get another chance at the Mother’s Day Caddis, even if you can’t get out right now.

You should take tomorrow morning off from fishing, anyway, and participate in the annual Yellowstone River Clean Up. Meet at the Livingston Civic Center, in Sacajawea Park, at 8:00 a.m., boat or no boat. Breakfast snacks and lunch when you return are provided. Join us in cleaning up our beloved river! You can go fishing in the afternoon and evening (in the rain).

Flows are up quite a bit from the last time you floated, so use caution if you’re headed out.