The Firehole River in the Park is still stuck if you will in the late summer doldrums.  The River remains one of the many Yellowstone waters under special regulations right now - basically the entire river is closed from 2 PM to 5 AM.

That’s appropriate, and in fact in our opinion given flows and water temps, you probably shouldn’t be fishing the Firehole at all at this point, and we wish the NPS would post such. 

Just for interest sake, the Firehole’s flow rate today near Madison junction was 238 cfs at 0800, with today’s mean 269 cfs, and the 20% marker 229 cfs.  There was a rain induced boost to nearly 280 cfs yesterday late, but flows have dropped off quickly this morning.

Given the remarkably hot summer the Firehole has experienced (including the large fish kill earlier this year), we’re suggesting you even leave the Firehole’s tributaries alone until fall.  Let’s give those fish a break.  Cooler and lengthening evenings are helping the picture overall, though flows are near record low at this point in time.

Fall isn’t that far off;  let’s give her another few weeks of protection and see what the fall weather brings.

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Flies to have in the box:

In keeping with the above, we are not recommending flies at this point.

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