Every year, starting around the end of the first week of August, the folks who live from one end of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to the other begin to count the days. This year is no different. It’s been a long, hot, smoky summer — as most summers have been over the last decade and a half or so, and as most of us who’ve lived here for any length of time predicted after a “winter” with virtually no snow — and we needed a break. Generally speaking, that relief tends to show up sometime in the middle of August. This year, the reprieve arrived on Aug. 13.
It rained. All day. It was as if Mother Nature slipped a piping hot skillet under a stream of cold tap water. The summer-seared asphalt on paved streets from Idaho Falls to Bozeman, and from Cody to Rexburg seemed to steam with a collective exhale.
Where I live for much of the year — Idaho Falls — we endured a brutal July. We broke an all-time record for heat when, on July 12, the mercury climbed to 103. It broke a 38-year-old mark that was set on June 25, 1988, the year of the Yellowstone fires, when the thermometer read 102. The August amelioration couldn’t arrive soon enough.
And for fly fishers, the countdown clock for the best six weeks of the season started in earnest. In Yellowstone National Park, the National Park Service lifted its heat-induced fishing closures on Aug. 12, as nighttime temperatures dipped the week before — West Yellowstone got its first freeze of the season on Aug. 4, when the nighttime low plummeted to 28 degrees. It was a much needed blast of what’s to come, as many of the thermally enhanced rivers of the park were simply unfishable thanks to water temperatures in the 80s. Most of the trout in the Firehole, the Madison, and the Gibbon were likely nosed up into the cooler tributaries basting under the summer sun. Just like us, they were waiting for that first chill that offers proof that summer, while sometimes fleeting in the Rockies, does not, indeed, last forever.
Now, most park waters are now open to anglers (the Madison, Firehole, and Gibbon remain closed as of this writing), but wise fly fishers aren’t yet fully motivated. There’s still some summer to be had, and solid fishing in the park won’t really heat up until the weather truly cools down. But on surrounding rivers from Cooke City to Ashton, trout are moving around, reacclimating to a more food-centric existence now that the water is legitimately cooling off. It’s a great time for fly fishers to bring out the big bugs and start head-hunting on rivers like the Shoshone, the Yellowstone, and the Henry’s Fork. For many fly fishers, this is the most magical time of the year.
Hopper season
For ham-handed vise-monkeys like me, these next few weeks offer the chance to venture into the woods armed with the flies we love to tie the most. Bigger hooks. Easily crafted terrestrial patterns. Flies that are easy to see. Foam, rubber legs, and Antron. Oh, my.
Don’t misunderstand. These days, hoppers, ants, and beetles are around starting in late June. But on lower-elevation rivers, the bigger trout, given rising water temps and the resulting lower oxygen levels, aren’t willing to put in the effort to go and get them. Now that rivers are getting chilled at night, and daytime highs aren’t nearly so oppressive, the big fish and the big bugs are in the same opportunistic window on the fly fisher’s Venn diagram. For dry-fly anglers, it’s Christmas in August.
In due time, another week or so, it’ll be worth venturing into the park in search of trout. Rivers and streams in the northeast corner should get the first look, followed by rivers like the Gardner and the Yellowstone. I honestly wouldn’t bother with the Gibbon below Virginia Cascade until later in the month, but the stretch above Norris Geyser Basin might be worth a look for west slope cutthroats and Arctic grayling — the latter might surprise you, both in terms of size and their willingness to get their diminutive mouths around size 10 foam beetle.
For now, spend the next few evenings armed with an iced glass of Irish, hunched over the vise tying terrestrial bugs from about size 8 to size 12. Then, if you have the means, make your way to Yellowstone. Aside from perhaps the first few weeks of the season (which now starts in May), these next several weeks offer arguably the best fishing of the year within the boundaries of the world’s first national park.
The Lamar River in Yellowstone National Park (photo: Chad Shmukler).
Five angling destinations to take your box of hoppers this season
I love lists. To-do lists. Grocery lists. But there’s nothing better than a fishing list. With that in mind, here’s a quick list of the waters in the park where I’d take by box of high-floating terrestrials and give them a try during these next few stellar weeks in Yellowstone:
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Cache Creek, Soda Butte Creek, and the Lamar River.
This is a three-in-one destination that can be done in a long day of fishing. It can be especially rewarding for those who don’t mind a fairly flat, albeit somewhat long trail. From the Lamar River trailhead on off the Grand Loop Road between Tower/Roosevelt and the park’s northeast entrance, you’ll first hike south to Soda Butte Creek — this first stroll is mild and not taxing at all. There are Yellowstone cutthroat trout in Soda Butte Creek — the average fish is probably a foot long or so, but there’s a chance you’ll see some bigger fish that might have pushed up from the Lamar in search of colder water. From there, you’ll cross the creek near a series of braids, and continue south. At this point, the Lamar River proper will be on your right to the west — it’s a short bushwhack through the sage to the river, which, when water temperatures cool, is easily one of the best places in the park to catch nice cutthroats on dry flies. If you keep walking south, however, you’ll come to the intersection of the Lamar River Trail and the Specimen Ridge Trail. If you wish, you can take the latter to the Lamar. My advice, stay on the Lamar River Trail which will take you to Cache Creek, just above the confluence with the Lamar. The best way to tackle this one-day fishing assignment is to probably hump it to Cache Creek, fish for a couple of hours, and then work your way downstream to the Lamar. Then, follow the Lamar downstream until you reach the Specimen Ridge Trail. From there head northeast, back to the intersection with the Lamar River Trail and head due north, where you can fish Soda Butte Creek as your last stop on this fairly epic cutthroat day. The good news? From Soda Butte Creek, you should be able to see your car in the trailhead parking lot. Word of warning here: this corner of the park is serious bear country. This is, generally speaking, where the throng of long-lense-toting tourists go to see grizzlies and wolves interact on the Lamar River prairie. Bear spray should be compulsory. In all, you’ll probably cover five miles — more if you fish Cache Creek upstream for any appreciative distance.
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Tower Creek.
The fish in Tower Creek aren’t terribly big, but they are stunning. Wild brook trout, interlopers in the park, are the dominant fish in Tower Creek, and, once in a while, foot-long brookie will show up. The best part about fishing Tower Creek? The fish are always looking up, and the water is highly oxygenated because the gradient is rather severe. This makes for excellent pocket-water angling with a light fly rod. This is bear country, so have bear spray with you and, if you’re fishing along, make some noise.
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Fall River, Boundary Creek, and the Bechler River
. The Fall and Bechler rivers flow off the Pitchstone Plateau in the park’s southwest corner, which is best accessed via the Cave Falls Road that starts in Idaho and ends in Wyoming. The Bechler is a true backcountry trophy trout stream, and the Fall River is more of a scenic experience with solid rainbow trout fishing. The Bechler River trailhead starts at the Bechler Ranger Station. The hike to the best fishing is a solid four miles along the Boundary Creek Trail (and Boundary Creek is an excellent dry-fly stream. The trail leads to a backcountry campsite and then to Boundary Creek. From there, fish downstream to the Bechler. For the best fishing, fish upstream. If you need to get back to the car before dark, fish downstream. The river gets fast over Bechler Falls, and remains pretty swift, with a few nice bends and deep pools, until you get to the Fall River just above Cave Falls. Most of the fish here are rainbows, and the bigger fish will be upstream in the slower meadow reaches of Boundary Creek and the Bechler. The fish in the Fall River are eager dry-fly eaters, and they might top out at about 15 inches.
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Nez Perce Creek.
This is a well-known creek because it crosses under the Grand Loop Road north of Old Faithful and flows into the Firehole. The creek’s lower reaches are a lot like the Firehole, in that they’re heavily influenced by thermal inflows from hot springs and geysers. Later in the year, as the weather cools off, these lower reaches can be good. But, if the weather is at all warm, consider taking the Mary Mountain Trail south of the stream’s intersection with the Grand Loop Road. Hike on a very easy trail almost due east for a mile or two, and you’ll come into some really nice trout water that’s home to brown trout that can reach up to 17 or 18 inches. This is one of the Firehole tributaries that sees browns move out of the Firehole as summer progresses and the river gets too warm for trout to reasonably survive. It’s a really great stream for throwing hoppers, ants, and beetles, and you’ll be far enough away from the road to get away from the crowds.
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Grizzly Lake and Straight Creek.
The Grizzly Lake Trailhead is situated north of Norris Geyser Basin on the Grand Loop Road. From the road, it ventures off to the northwest and leads over a sizable ridge before dropping down to the outflow of Grizzly Lake into Straight Creek. The fish here are mostly brook trout, but, later in the summer and into fall, bigger brookies will drop down out of Grizzly Lake into the creek as they prepare to spawn. Not only are they gorgeous, but some can be quite large for a fish that generally eats its way through all available resources and stunts into a population of small fish. The migratory brookies can be in the 15-inch range. It’s a moderate hike up and over the ridge, but the fishing in the creek and the lower end of the lake is pretty easy. Later in the year, big terrestrial bugs will almost always get a look.
Final word
Hopper Season has always been a part of the fly-fishing tapestry in this corner of the Rockies. Fire season? That’s something of a more recent development that seems to be more pronounced as the climate changes and smoke tends to push across the mountains for weeks at a time. So that annual event — that mid-August reprieve from the heat that is usually accompanied by a monsoon rainshower – is even more welcome than before. It not only heralds the downhill side of the heat and, hopefully, the fires that accompany it, it rings in Hopper Season. And for dry-fly anglers, it’s the best time of year to find themselves within the wild, spacious boundaries of Yellowstone National Park.
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