The Firehole has been looking better and better of late, and today’s weather should help.

The Firehole’s flow rate today at 0600 near Madison junction was 232 cfs, with today’s mean 267 cfs, and the 20% marker 242 cfs.  The river spiked flows on the 23rd and 24th due to last weekend’s storms, and has been steady now for about 5 days. 

Water temps on the upper river have looked much better again this week - at the upper Firehole gauge station near Old Faithful peak temps have been 53 to 54 (or less) most of last week.  The lower river below the canyon isn’t heating as consistently as it was a few weeks ago, but they are still some warm water temp days - it peaked over 67 on the 27th!

Cloudy and cool days have brought the baetis out on the Firehole - fish are steadily working this hatch, again on the right kind of day - though they’re pretty picky about size.  These bugs are small, 20-24, and we’ve produced fish nymphing, with emergers, and dun patterns.  Fine tippets and clean presentations are needed. 

They are still fair numbers of a small tan (some are darker too) caddis and small midges coming off too, these make a reasonable target on the nicer days, and can make it a challenge to sort out what the fish are taking when everything’s on the water.

We’ve left the terrestrial recommendations on this week, probably the last one, as temps have been and will be cool enough to bring those guys to their end this week.

Finally - we’ve not fished the lower Firehole below the canyon yet as the water temps are still pushing it on some days, no reliable word on browns up that far as of yet, though it could be any day.

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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;  Midges - Suspender midgle, disco midge, your favorites you can see; your attractor package

Nymphs: San Juan Worm, red, brown, tan; PT; BHPT; BH Hares Ear, Copper John, olive; BH Prince; Lightning bugs, gold, silver, green/olive

Terrestials: Hoppers - Grand, Whit, Dave’s, Carnage, Kicking, Hoppinator; Beetles- Fire, Foam, HiVis, Sam’s;  Ants - Chernobyl, ParaAnt, black and cinnamon, CDC Flying ant, black, brown, cinnamon; Epoxy, same colors

Streamers:  Wooly buggers, brown, yellow, olive, black; Sparkle buggers, same colors; Girdle bug; Zonkers, assorted

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