Livingston Montana Fishing Report

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This NO BS Livingston Montana fishing report is valid from September 12 until about September 25, roughly, unless there’s a huge shift in the weather.

General Comments

Cool weather hit for real at the beginning of September, with a couple days here and there with highs that struggled to get out of the 60s, nights dropping into the 40s even at low elevation, and a lot of rain. Since then, we’ve had generally seasonal temperatures, with highs in the 60s to 70s and lows in the 40s. Ideal for September, and something that has been in short supply in recent years.

Hatches, hoppers, and fishing in general have responded positively, and water temps are now in the 50s to low 60s throughout our operations area. All hoot-owl closures within 2+ hours of our home base in Livingston have been lifted.

Here is the current list of hoot-owl and complete closures in the state of Montana. Note that this list lags by a few hours.

Here are YNP news releases. Closures will be noted in new or updated releases.

The Details

The Yellowstone River: has been very good since the beginning of the month, except when muddy. The dry fly fishing in particular has really perked up. Some places this means a bunch of hand-size fish on little dries. Some places it means a few “unicorns” eating your hopper, even if most fish are smaller and eating the dropper. Some Baetis and Drake Hackerals have been around, and these bugs are likely to increase at the expense of Mahoganies and Tricos. Absent notable numbers of rising fish, tie on a peach to burnt orange hopper. From Mallard’s Rest up to Gardiner, fish this with an ant or Hazy Cripple or ant trailer more often than not. In the past week, they’ve really wanted the ant. Downstream of Mallard’s and especially east of Livingston, go with a pearl or silver Spanker nymph on the dropper instead. The browns are getting frisky as they start thinking about fall spawning migrations…

The Boulder River: is very low and will be cold up high. Afternoons will probably be best top to bottom. Use similar flies as mentioned for the Yellowstone.

The lower Madison River is open 24hr again, but on warmer afternoons it will still be too warm to fish well after lunch, and the kayakers and other such riff-raff may be annoying on sunny weekends for a couple more weeks. The dying weeds on the drift are the other annoyance. Don’t roll-cast and snap your back casts up quickly to avoid dragging your flies across the weeds as badly. Fish hopper/dropper rigs. That dropper might be an ant or it might be a skinny, obnoxious nymph like a Perdigon. You can also fish crayfish in the holes below weed beds. The grosser the weather here, the better the fishing.

The upper Madison is fishing well on small beadheads and ants. Word is that the hopper bite has been so-so. The dry fly fishing should improve here rapidly as crowds and temps drop.

The Stillwater River is now running too low to float, for our blood, at under 400cfs most days. You can still creep down it from Jeffrey’s Landing to the Yellowstone if you have an ultralight raft and/or don’t mind dragging it over shallow places. Fish hopper-dropper, dead-drift/drag streamers, or look for hatches of fall mayflies. You can often get away with something like a #12 Brindle Chute with a #16 Hazy Cripple on the dropper for most of the day here in early fall.

The Missouri River is totally uninteresting to us this time of year due to weeds and worse dry fly fishing than we have close to home. That said, crowds are lower than they are in high summer or even later in the fall.

Montana Small Streams: Even the low elevation streams like the East Gallatin are now reasonable prospects. On the meadow-ish streams, fish hoppers and ants, but be prepared to match hatches of this and that or to nymph. On the steeper mountain creeks, don’t bother until lunchtime due to cold water. Then fish hoppers or your favorite attractors.

Local Trout Lakes and Reservoirs: With the cooldown in temps and heating up of the fishing in flowing water, we’re now sticking to rivers and to a lesser extent small streams.

The Paradise Valley spring creeks may see Sulphur or midge hatches, with calm/cloudy days generally best. More of the fishing will be subsurface, with sight-nymphing or nymphing the riffles the most likely prospects. Midge pupae and tiny mayfly nymphs are best.

Yellowstone Park:

  • Gardner: Too warm and weedy below Boiling River. The best fishing will be from lower Sheepeater Canyon to Boiling River. Fish a Chubby/dropper combo or straight nymph with a stonefly/attractor combo. There may also be Drake Mackeral hatches in the afternoons. It can be worth getting a very early start here through September due to heavy guide traffic hitting the larger pools with nymphs. If you know, you know…
  • Yellowstone River from the Lake to the Falls: Fish numbers are now pretty low, since most of this section’s adult trout spend their winters in Yellowstone Lake. Your most likely tactic is to cover lots of water with swung streamers such as Montana Intruders or other trout spey patterns (or Woolly Buggers). If you encounter rising fish, match the Drake Mackeral or BWO hatch they’re feeding on.
  • Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone: Streamers will be the best bet until early October starts to slow the fishing down a bunch here. Side dishes will be hatches (BWO, Tan Drakes) and waning hopper-dropper fishing on warmer afternoons. If your access is crowded, fishing will be tough.
  • Black Canyon of the Yellowstone: Similar to Grand Canyon, but terrestrials will be more productive the closer you get to Gardiner.
  • Lamar River: Hoppers, ants, beetles, and even bees are good choices if there’s no hatch. Hatches might include midges, Tricos, Little Green Drakes, Tan Drakes (aka Drake Mackerals), BWO, and a few full-size Green Drakes. This water will be crowded. If there aren’t many anglers, there will be bison. Fishing is often best after lunch and into the evening this time of year, a far cry from the 9:00AM to noon sweet spot earlier in the season.
  • Soda Butte Creek: Same flies and tactics (and bison) as the Lamar, but the angler crowds until about September 25 are going to be insanely high in the meadow water. We never like Soda Butte due to the crowds, and nice days in September see the worst crowds of the whole year, since the “newlyweds and almost deads” who flock to YNP in September “after the crowds go home” and thereby make their own crowds don’t tend to hike very far and this is the easiest-access water in the region.
  • Slough Creek: Similar to Lamar. Ants are generally far more effective terrestrials than hoppers here. Beetles are also a good choice. The fish are going to be very spooky from here on out in the meadow water.
  • Gibbon River: 2:00 fishing closures have been lifted, but the water below Norris Geyser Basin is never great in the fall except when large numbers of brown and rainbow trout are in from Hebgen Lake after mid-October. Above Norris, Above, fish attractor dry/dropper combos in the rougher areas or match hatches in the Norris Meadow. The choppier water further from the road will offer better opportunities for decent numbers of cutthroat or grayling.
  • Firehole River: 2:00 closures are no longer in place, but afternoons are still likely to be slow on warm, sunny days. Look for White Miller Caddis and maybe some early BWO hatches in the mornings. Swing soft hackles in the riffles or nymph the ledges if there’s no hatch.
  • Madison River: 2:00 closures have been lifted, but this water is still warm. That said, it’s worth chucking a bobber in the Barns Pools first thing in the morning or maybe fishing a hopper-dropper rig along grassy banks. If targeting runners, fish a Rubberlegs with some sort of attractor nymph on the dropper.
  • Lakes: We generally don’t fish lakes in the park for the remainder of the season, but the grayling lakes will turn out some fish on leeches, small soft hackles and nymphs, and occasionally offer up a Callibaetis or damsel hatch. Mornings before the wind kicks up are best.
  • Small Creeks: Most are now too low and often too cold to really interest us until next summer. The lowest-elevation creeks like those feeding the Yellowstone or lower Gardner might still turn out some good fishing on dry/dropper rigs after lunch on warmer days. Forget them if it is cold and/or rainy.

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Do you find these reports helpful? We don't sell flies or otherwise make money off of them, so we humbly ask that you consider Buying Us a Coffee. Also, if you've got the funds, you can...

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