Fishing Reports

Had a nice day on Sunday.  Floated the river (3-B) with a couple of guides that I needed to get to know a little better.  We did a lot of streamer fishing (which I would say was just O.K. at times, but I've got a lot of streamers to test out). 

The flow was recently bumped up to 2,500 cfs, and is most likely to run a little higher throughout the spring.  With a little bit of warm weather, the inflows at 3,400 cfs already, and the low elevation runoff has muddied the lower river.  Soap Creek, Beauvais, and Woody are all blown out, but hopefully this clears quickly.

Nymphing was good, and I saw enough midges on the surface to show signs of a dry fly fishing day, but we had just enough wind to put that idea to rest.  Midges (black) and sowbugs (brownish) were in the fish that I pumped, and found no better pattern than a small soft hackle.  Water's cold (upper 30's), but the fish were active despite this, and we were finding fish in some pretty fast water for this time of year.

It was a busy day for March, but can't blame people for wanting to enjoy the weather, it's been a long, cold winter.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy

O.K., haven't put up a report in a while, but my friend Jeff Buszmann just did his first guide trip of the year.  So, here's his report:

"Fished 3 to B on Friday. The wind blew at our backs most of the day. We put on around 930, only ones in the parking lot! We started out nymphing with a sj, pink ray, and a rootbeer midge. First fish was in the snag, a nice 18 inch brown on the pink ray. BTW the 12 year old could cast better than at least half of clients. We caught another nice bow in the snag. The dad switched to streamers and caught a brown at the top of the duck blind channel. We should not have taken that channel as the flows right now are too low. Saw a few redds back there but no fish on them still. Caught another nice bow on the black conehead bugger across from crow beach. Stopped on the leeward side of the corrals for lunch. We picked up a few fish here and and there, mostly on the pink sowbug stuff. I pumped a few fish and saw lots of huge sowbugs (14). We stopped and wade fished the right side of 3 rivers and got into several fish, very soft takes and the smaller class of browns (8-10 inches). It was sunny from about 11am on which may have hurt the streamer fishing some. We streamer fished out and got off around dark, stuck one fish between little horn rapids and last chance. For a windy day with a high of 41 in Feb not bad."

Tight Lines,
Jeremy

Had a nice trip with Jamie and Jean, thanks again for coming.

Fished the lower and upper sections, and would say the nymphing is better on the upper, and the streamer fishing better on the lower.  I wasn't seeing as many Pseudos, but started to see some fall Baetis on the lower.  Each day there were some rising fish, but we preferred to streamer fish right through, as the hatch periods often coincide with active feeding fish that'll chase a streamer too.

My fly selection included a worm, a Ray Charles, and a wondernymph tied in Pseudo colors.

I've been streamer fishing vanilla and white colored streamers tied in the Bugger or Aztec style.  When these aren't moving fish, I'll switch to Black.  I've been using a Black Zonker a lot.

At this point, it's probably equally grassy everywhere, you can't escape it by going to a particular section, you just have to deal with it.

The flow is at 2,350 cfs, so it's created a lot of soft, shallow riffles to fish.   The fish are pretty spread out, but every good looking piece of water is holding something. 

Browns are getting some color, and I'm seeing some clean gravel patches appear.  Might find a big one!

Tight Lines,
Jeremy

Had a good day on the Yellowstone yesterday, thanks to Roger and Caron.  It was a nice father daughter day.

Nymphing was slow early, but picked up as the day went on.  We were most successful with a small brown stonefly immitation with a prince nymph trailing. 

We didn't streamer fish for long, but weren't getting much action in the sunshine anyway.

Dry fly fishing was a lot of fun, and surprisingly productive with a beetle and a hopper.  Some Drakes were coming off, and a Parachute Adams would have worked, but we had good enough action to stick with what we were doing.  We caught quite a few mid-size and small fish, but mixed in some very nice ones, too.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy

The flow is flat lined at 2,500 cfs, and probably will be for a while.  Yesterday was a nice, comfortable fall day, with a satisfactory amount of fish caught. 

We nymphed all day as the nice folks were just learning, but are having to fight the fall grass qute a bit.  When the flies are clean, we were able to do pretty well on a San Juan, and a little flash back PT.

Tricos are still coming off every day, and rising fish are available in the mornings (later in the day after the cold nights).  Pseudos are still around in the late afternoon, too, with a smattering of Black Caddis. 

Streamer fishing has been effective, too, with light brown or white being my preference.

River traffic is up, but that's typical for September.  It's just a nice time to be out.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy
 

Well, we finally got that break from the heat that I thought I wanted, but wasn't ready for.  It rained pretty hard on us on Friday, but the nymphing, and streamer fishing was good.  

Streamer fishing black seemed to be the way to go under the clouds, although fishing brown trout type buggers has been very solid in the sun.  Nymphing pseudo type nymphs was O.K., but the fish were really on Black Caddis Pupae, and anything small and black would work.  Worms are still taking fish, especially on the lower river where the feeder creeks were dumping in a little mud, and irrigation return exists.

The flow has dropped back to 2,500 cfs now, and should remain there for quite a while.

The hopper bite hasn't been ideal, but good anglers are still taking fish close to the banks (I mean really close), or twitching them in the middle.

Hot weather will return this week, so we'll see if it improves.

Tight Lines,
Jeremy