Current Fishing Report:
Tuesday March 09, 2010

{To enlarge photos double click on the picture.}

Canyon Cutt!

Nice Brown!

Chasing Buggers!

Nice Fat Cutt!

17" Lower Shoshone Fish!

Streamer Bow!

Taking Wigglers!

Nice Bighorn Brown!

Carpus Maximus!

Big Fat Bow!

Current Fishing Conditions:

Fishing is Hard Work!

Waiting for the BWO's to really get started!

Tail Waters are Where it's at for the Rest of the Winter!

The Lower Shoshone Fishing has picked up a bit with the warmer weather. There are a few fish rising to midges in the afternoons. BWO's are starting to make their appearance towards the end of the midge hatch. Light tippet and small flies for the risers. Add some movement to your emergers and fish will bite. Nymphs in the riffels will also get results. Move until you find fish willing to feed. Presentation is the key. Concentrate on the upper river below the hot spring for more consistent action. You will find the bigger fish in some real shallow water during the warmest part of the day.  I fished on the 8th and it was pretty tough with a high pressure front moving in. All the fish I got were subsurface on zebras and BWO emergers.  Water is getting pretty clear and the fish are wary..

The Shoshone Canyon Canyon temps coming up and so are the fish. Fishing was killer on the 3rd. Lots of dry fly action.

The Corbett section   Looking good now. Water clarity is the best it's been all year. Fishing good swinging streamers. Nymph rigs in the faster water. Water is very clear, use stealth for the bigger fish. I fished on the 3rd and it was good. Had the best midge hatch of the winter so far with a good bunch of BWO's for the last 30 minutes. Killer dry fly action for about 2 1/2 hours. Got some real pretty fish.

Willwood . Streamers picking up with clearing water.  Fish are moving toward the tribs to spawn.

Wind River, Bighorn River, and Canyon   Flows dropped to 700cfs which takes wading from a suicide mission to doable in the canyon.  We fished the canyon on the 7th. Water was super clear with bright sun. Really a good midge hatch. Saw a bunch of fish suspended in the deeper pools. Guess what?  They weren't biting. We each landed 2. The hits were very tentative. Must have been a small front that came in. My friend floated town and had similar luck. Midges were the hatch with a bunch of baetis nymphs under rocks on the verge of hatching. Midge pupa was the fly. Perfect drifts were a must. Fish are still in the deeper slower winter water. Just a few males starting to build nests.

Bighorn River Fort Smith  Very clear water and high barometric pressure can put the fish off the feed. Midges and BWO's are the hatch. Fish are still in the slower deeper winter holding water. Streamers can be very effective. Nymphs working as usual.

It Doesn't Get Any Better!

Klumping!

Clean Bow!

Warming up!

Fish are Healthy in the Bighorn!

Shoshone Midges!

Angry!

Nice Yellowstone Cutt!

Choppers!

Super healthy Rainbow!

Steve's Rod

Steve's Rod

Phillipson Peerless "63"

Phillipson Dry Fly Special

Abercrombie Fitch Firehole

Granger Aristocrat

I was fishing on the river downtown Cody yesterday and ran into a fellow guide and friend from the Humble Fly Shop. We were commenting on how we knew a lot of people that talk fishing but with the exception of a half dozen close friends we seldom if ever see them on the rivers actually fishing, especially this time of year. We both have a great love of fly fishing and as a matter of fact have both pretty much dedicated our lives to living the fly fishing life style. We don't make a bunch of money but we have few if any headaches and live a good healthy honest life. What more can there be?

I happened to mention that I was fixing up an old bamboo rod for a friend. The rod had a great number of intermediate wraps and would be very labor intensive to restore. It was from the early 1920's and originally cost $1.35. It was a terrible fishing rod but the rod was to become just a conversation piece and wall hanger.. I told him I would probably have about 20 hours of time invested. When he asked how much I was charging I said nothing. I needed to get my hands on as many rods as possible to practice on and I had never attempted one as intricate as this one even though it would never be fished. He asked what I liked about the old rods so much that I would do something like this. A very good question!

I think for me the answer lies in the old rods connection to a better time. A time with healthy wild fish and streams. A time with no pressures or crowds competing for water. A time with a more relaxed pace. A time when people made things that were functional as well as beautiful with their hands. A time when there was honor and ethics and not so much greed. When I'm fishing bamboo, even if I am not catching fish and just out casting, I feel great joy and peace. I find myself just looking at the rod and admiring the work of someone who truly cared about what he did for a living. A simpler time. It's odd how this material can transport you to a better place.

 With a raised eyebrow my friend said he had never really looked at it that way before but seemed to really understand where I was coming from. He asked the obvious questions about bamboo compared to graphite, durability, maintenance, ect. I tried to explain that bamboo is not better or worse, just a different material that is interesting, and a great material for fishing rods. I could see the curiosity building in his eyes. I know that feeling well. This is how it begins! Here's some pictures of Steve's rod and some of the other rods I have fixed in the last couple months. Enjoy!

Steve's Rod

7' 8" South Fork

Phillipson Peerless 63

Phillipson Peerless #6

Firehole

Granger

Bighorn Ft Smith

Jerry, Anthony and I fished the Bighorn at Ft Smith on the 21st. This is a great time of year to fish the Horn mainly because there are very few people fishing. Having this river all to yourself is something everyone should try at least once. This day there was only one other boat on the water from After Bay to 13 mile.

The river is in winter mode. We didn't expect to catch a bunch of fish, but there is about a 2 hour window of opportunity when the fish bite the best. The browns had just finished spawning and the fish had dropped back into the slowest water at the bottoms of the runs to rest and feed. Most of the fish we caught were on the edges eating  midges and just a couple BWO's. They were eating emergers just below the surface. We chose to throw streamers with a soft hackle dropper. Almost all the fish we caught were on the dropper. A big long pull with a pause instigated hits.

There is plenty of water in the river and it looked very good. Good numbers of water foul in the air. Very little trash for such a heavily fished river. The weather was perfect with a high of about 40, partly cloudy and no wind. Jerry caught his first fish on a fly which made the day a success from the start! We couldn't have asked for a better day. We didn't slow down to try to fish dries, but it looks like you could fish dries on a run for a couple hours and do very well. We never got anything huge but the other boat fishing reported a rainbow that was shockingly big a mile or so before the take out. Ninety percent (90%) of the fish we caught today were browns.

If you get a chance the Bighorn is a great place to try right now. The way it was fishing, you could probably fish the lower stretches and do very well for some bigger fish. Down to Mallards might be a lot of fun. Enjoy the pictures!

Part Five- Catch and Release Waters

The last of the five part installments will be on our catch and release waters. The North Tongue is the only catch and release water in Wyoming outside Yellowstone Park. You can keep some brookies but fishing is on artificial only and everything but brook trout must be released. This stream has had to deal with the same increase in fishing pressure that all other Wyoming streams have experienced. Last summer it was the most crowded it has ever been. Catch and release regulations start at the confluence of Bull Creek and go up stream for about 3 1/2 miles. Below Bull Creek the numbers of fish fall off dramatically and even a few hundred yards into the no kill section numbers of fish are much reduced. Fish are stocked below Bull Creek just to keep some fish in the lower river. The river above Bull Creek all the way up to it's headwaters is one of the best high mountain streams I have seen anywhere. Tons of fish and even some big ones up to 18" or better. Last year the fish population was as strong as I have ever seen it. Even with a short growing season and increased fishing pressure the fish were very healthy looking. In the past I had even caught a legitimate 20" fish there. Anyone who has fished this little stream cannot deny the success of the catch and release section. Every hole is just full of fish.

The stream has it's issues. One thing is cattle grazing in the creek. Luckily, this is not year round, but when the cows are there you can see the effect. The cows put a hurt on stream banks and bank side vegetation. There are signs reminding people not to drink the water because of fecal bacteria. Cattle can be grazed in almost all of the Bighorn National Forest. If they were driven further into the back country instead of released right by the river part of this problem could be greatly diminished. Once the cows find the creek, that is where they stay until they are picked up in the fall. The other thing the cows do is bring in hordes of black flies for a couple weeks in early July. Miserable for people but fish may eat them, I don't know.

One other practice that I don't think makes sense in the blowing up of the beaver dams. In a low land streams a beaver pond can slow water which reduces oxygen content and causes the water to warm too much during the heat of the summer. It also encourages silt to accumulate. This is not the case at 9000ft above sea level. The river is supplied almost totally by snow melt. The water is fast and cool. There is very little sediment dumped into the river because the snow melts off the grass. I have seen beaver ponds being a big benefit to the fish population on the North Tongue. When flows drop in the fall the fish all move into the deepest pools they can find for the winter. These ponds are perfect for this. The ponds often flood areas way back into the willows which provides the fish with good cover from predators and fisherman alike. Young fish thrive in these nutrient rich havens. These areas can support lots of fish and the fish seem to get bigger in them. I see no reason to do away with them.

Is the North Tongue a success story? You bet! It is the first and only, and worked like a charm. Why wouldn't we use this as a model for some other streams? Your guess is as good as mine.

Yellowstone Park has recently gone catch and release in most areas as well. In the last 5 or 6 years Yellowstone Lake lost over 4 million Yellowstone cutthroats due to various reasons. The fishing on the Yellowstone from mid-July on used to be beyond belief as far as numbers and quality of fish. Now the river is a shadow of what it once was. There are less than 10% of the fish remaining. Where did all the fisherman that used to fish the Yellowstone go?  Answer: Lamar Valley.

The Lamar, Slough Creek, and Soda Butte Creek had small numbers of fisherman up until the crash of the Yellowstone River. It was and still is one of my favorite places to fish (if I can find a hole). They are all great streams with pretty good populations of fish, but can they handle the presence of thousands of fisherman everyday all summer long? Yes they can! The catch and release regulations have definitely saved these fisheries. There is no doubt that these creeks would be void of fish had the Park Service not stepped in and implemented catch and release regulations. The fish you catch here generally have multiple sores in there mouths from being caught before. Many are deformed from rough handling and have broken jaws or missing mandibles. I cannot help feeling sorry for these guys as they do get an extreme amount of fishing pressure but, They are alive! Most even have big fat bellies despite being caught many, many times. Most fly fisherman that come to Yellowstone consider this to be the premiere fishing in the park today. They should have been here 10 years ago!

Out of all the examples of catch and release regulation there is only one that can be considered some what of a failure. High mountain lakes. Brook trout have a tendency to over populate these lakes. The fish remain very small and the numbers are incredible. I have never seen this with any other species of trout. This example does not apply to any of the rivers we have discussed. Many of these fisheries, once stabilized, could return to a reasonable bag limit if slot limits are in place, sizes and numbers of fish kept are limited, and as long as ample water is left in the river. Any place that has been devastated in the past has made it's recovery by implementing changes to stimulate the health of the fish population. As fisherman of all types, we all want great fishing. As our population grows we must make these changes or chance loosing it all. Lets pay attention to our successes as well as our failures. If we pay attention we will have a lot less failures in the future.

To read the first 4 parts click below:

Part 1_ Northfork Fisheries

Part 2_Clarksfork Fisheries

Part 3_ The Greybull & Wood Fisheries

Part 4_ The Lower Shoshone Fisheries

Tight Lines!