Father’s Day weekend and we’re floating the Yellowstone? Rare! The fact that it’s damn near perfectly clear hovering around 7k flows is almost unheard of. This is much more typical early July water levels. With runoff seemingly in the rearview mirror, it’s time to get out there and enjoy the good fishing we are having! There are not the big salmonflies in Paradise Valley or the upper river just yet. Those are still a week plus away from popping. But we are seeing really good caddis as well as PMD hatches starting to get fish looking up. I think with the unusually clean water for just coming off runoff, you don’t have to fish big heavy weighted stonefly or streamer patterns tight to the banks to get fish to react. This year’s super low and clear water conditions this early will have fish on the smaller caddis and mayflies in the riffle corners. It’s almost as though everything is about 2 to 3 weeks early. So think back on what was ideal for the Stone after July 4th week on normal years and that’s a pretty good bet to be working now. You can still fish the big junk if you want to. There’s a good chance that a marauding brown trout could be lurking to grab a streamer, but given the fact that solid hatches are going off, there’s dry fly trout to be had as well. A definite bonus to the early start for the season.
