The Yellowstone River in the Park has continued to improve at least in some sections.  Note that the rains and snow from the weekend storm are going to induce some clarity issues for several days. 

Flows remain very low overall - at the Yellowstone Lake Outlet today (0515) flows are 540 cfs (average 1020 cfs, the 20% marker is 803 cfs).

Below Fishing Bridge right now is probably one of the least productive areas in the Park to fish in our minds - there just aren’t many (hardly any) fish in this section of the river this time of year.  If you just have to fish here, try a cloudy, overcast BWO type day, find fish, and cast to the risers.  You could cover lots of water with a streamer or streamer / mymph set up too, though odds are overwhelming you’ll have a skinny day.  We don’t recommend it. 

Yellowstone Canyons - there’s probably still two reasonable approaches here, and this is where we’d fish the river today if we could.   I’d throw streamers (or streamer / nymph - double nymph set ups) and plan to cover some water.   You also could be looking for BWOs on the cooler and overcast / precipitation days - the challenge might be finding where the hatch is the most prolific. 

Down near Gardner (and below) the water is very skinny (I wouldn’t float my wooden drift boat through here) - fishing is reasonable though.  Our preference would probably be to approach this with streamers or a streamer / nymp set up, though on a sunny day smaller attractors would work here.  BWOs should be getting stronger now - though we saw none in the high winds scouring this part of the river Sunday afternoon.

Terrestrials are on their last legs due to the cooler weather due this week, carry some but you probably won’t get much mileage out of ‘em. 

We have a full report available (updated yesterday) for the Yellowstone River outside the park on Best Fly Fishing Montana (this link will take you right to the report blog).

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Flies to have in the box:

Dries:  baetis - BWO, Blue Dun, Olive Sparkle Dun, Para-adams; Caddis - EHC, X Caddis, - tan, olive, black;  your attractor package

Nymphs:  Lightning bug, green and gold; Hares Ear, include BH;  Copper John, various colors; FB PT; SH PT; Prince - BH; your favorites

Terrestials: Hoppers - Grand, Whit, Dave’s, Carnage, Kicking  ; Beetles- Fire, Foam, HiVis, Sam’s;  Ants - Chernobyl, ParaAnt, black and cinnamon, CDC Flying ant, black, brown, cinnamon; Epoxy, same colors
 
Streamers / Others:  Woolly Buggers, brown, olive, black, Rubberlegs, brown, olive, black; Sparkle Buggers, brown, olive, black; Bow River Buggers; Girdle bug; Zonkers; Yuk Bug

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