The Lamar has continued to be a go to fishing destination through this water deprived summer, and she has continued to fish well this past week.  There have been some intermittent showers, but the river has been much  less rain impacted this week as compared to the week before.  

Lengthening nights and slightly cooler weather has really helped water temps, and we’re looking for the Park to rescind restrictions soon;  cooler water temps will also start pushing hatches back a bit during the day.

That said, the Lamar River below Cache Creek remains under special regulations right now - basically the river below Cache Creek is closed from 2 PM to 5 AM.   You still need to monitor water temps on the hotter, sunnier days after noon, at least the next few days are forecast to be pretty warm.

You can fish the Lamar after 2 PM above the Cache Creek confluence and in the Cache itself, and the higher small tribs.

Flows measured near the Tower Ranger station have gradually declined all week; today at 0615 flows were 169 cfs (today’s average 325 cfs, the 20% marker is 223 cfs).  This represents quite a drop from this time last week, though those flows numbers were inflated due to recent rains.  The record low flow record on this date was 159 cfs in 1940.

If you’re on the water in the first half of the day consider targetting the PMD hatches; otherwise you’re looking at searching with small terrestials (hoppers, beetles, ants) and attractor nymph droppers.  The Flavs are still around in pockets, and there are some Spruce Moths above Cache  Small parachutes have been useful for a couple of weeks now.

We’ve had some questions about whether or not the newest fires have impacted the Lamar’s fishing in any way.  The key answer is no - not directly.  There’s lots of smoke in the area pending wind direction, and as of this morning the East Entrance remains closed. 

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Flies to have in the box:

Dries:  PMDs - parachute, sparkle dun, sprout, cripple, CDC emerger, PMX - yellow, peacock, royal; Paradrake, gray, green/olive; Parachute Adams; Lime Tude; X-caddis (higher); Royal Trudes (higher); Stimulator, olive, yellow; Humpy, yellow; Parachute Caddis

Nymphs:  BH PT; Prince and BH Prince;  Micro Mayfly, olive, black; Barrs PMD emerger; small brown caddis nymphs

Terrestrials:  Hoppers, small to mid size, VW hopper, Grand hopper - tan; Beetles;  Ants - chernobyl, ParaAnt, black and cinnamon; Spruce Moths

Streamers / Others:  Wooly Buggers, brown / black (smaller); streamers not a key player on this water now.

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