“Willow Flies” Are Crawling—And the Hatch Is Starting The Salmonflies have begun their crawl up the banks and into the willows—exactly where the trout are looking. These insects don’t emerge midstream. They migrate to the edges, climbing rocks, grass, and willows. That’s where you’ll find the […]
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Every great trout water has three “signature hatches,” I’d argue. Applied to the Yellowstone River, you’ve got the Mother’s Day Caddis, swarming over the river prior to runoff and the ‘hopper “hatch” in mid- to late-summer, as the Montana breezes blow chunky terrestrials into the trout’s […]
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Spring 2025 fishing in the Yellowstone Valley continues to produce great fishing, although the Yellowstone has teetered towards its annual cycle of spring runoff. Yellowstone River Up-and-down weather has bounced the Yellowstone River to muddy near-runoff levels, then way back down with a recent cool spell. […]
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The Yellowstone River is soon to be big and muddy, Throughout the state of Montana, and particularly in the Yellowstone watershed, we received a good amount of high-mountain snow this past winter. All of that snow needs to melt and make it through our rivers and […]
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Hi, this is Dan Gigone from Sweetwater Fly Shop in Livingston, Montana. We’re right on the banks of the world famous Yellowstone River and around this time of year, late April into early May, we start getting a lot of phone calls, people just asking, are […]
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If you’ve never seen a real Mother’s Day Caddis hatch on the Yellowstone, let me try to describe it—though I’ll fail, of course. Words rarely do it justice. Imagine a spring afternoon that smells like wet cottonwoods and melting snow, the river moving fast but not […]
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Spring 2025 fishing continues to be great here in the Yellowstone Valley. Water levels on the Yellowstone continue to drop after last week’s precipitation. Yellowstone River The river volume is dropping from last week’s rain and snow event and clearing, very fishable though and we are […]
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Spring 2025 continues to produce good fishing on the Yellowstone River and the Paradise Valley spring creeks. Despite an increase in spring flows in the mainstem of the river fish have transitioned from the winter doldrums to early spring feeding patterns. Yellowstone River A bump in […]
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Written by Matthew Swan of Swan’s Fly Fishing and Montana Classic Boat Tours One of the greatest joys of fishing a wild freestone river is embracing its ever-changing nature. Unlike tailwaters, which offer predictable conditions, rivers like the Yellowstone shift with the seasons, challenging anglers while providing an […]
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The rites of spring are fully underway. Late March and April could be the most overlooked season of fishing of the year. While the weather can be a dice shake between wintery mix and delightful spring the fishing has been red hot. Rainbow trout have been […]
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