Yellowstone Park Waters

Lamar River System: Description and Access

The Lamar, Soda Butte, and Slough Creek all predominately exhibit a riffle-pool character with occasional stretches of timber and short, steep canyon sections. Slough Creek is the slowest of the three, but has two short and torrential canyons. Soda Butte is probably the steepest on average, but its one canyon section is short and uninteresting from a fishing perspective, anyway. The Lamar slots somewhere in the middle in its meadow sections but also has a much longer section of steep and broken water. We actually guide more in this portion of the Lamar than elsewhere.

The Lamar begins in the high Absaroka mountains along Yellowstone Park’s eastern border. It flows generally west towards the Yellowstone. Its remote upper reaches are frequented by backpackers and more and more anglers. The hike is straightforward, up the Lamar River Trail. Sometimes the trail is near the river, sometimes up on a bench about a mile away. The Lamar comes in sight of the Northeast Entrance Road at the Soda Butte Creek Confluence. Hereafter it is never more than a mile from the road and often only a few steps from it for its remaining 12-mile run to the Yellowstone.

The first eight miles of this stretch is in the broad Lamar Valley, while the remainder is in a canyon. The first half of the canyon is much tighter and steeper than the remainder, but cliff bands are present all the way from the top of the canyon to the bottom, and the river’s course is everywhere fast and rocky. As you might imagine, crowds are heavier in the meadow, though nowadays there are almost always a few people in the canyons as well, despite poor footing.

Areas of the Lamar System with tough footing see far lower crowds than other areas.

Soda Butte Creek begins with the junction of several small streams northeast of the park’s Northeast Entrance, between Cooke City and Silver Gate. It is never more than 500 yards from the road for its entire course. From the park gate down to the top of Ice Box Canyon Soda Butte flows in a mix of dense forest and small meadows, though it maintains a riffle-pool character. Ice Box Canyon is a sheer-walled and nasty canyon so named for the ice that covers its shadowy walls into July some years. Access to this canyon is basically impossible, though the fish in this cold and infertile canyon are mostly 6-inchers (or their spawning parents) anyway. From the bottom of Ice Box Canyon, the creek’s remaining run to the Lamar cuts through two meadows ( 1-mile Round Prairie and the 4-mile so-called Junction Meadow) separated by half a mile of rapids. The vast majority of the pressure occurs in the meadows, but nowhere on Soda Butte except the recesses of Ice Box Canyon is ever devoid of heavy angling crowds, anymore. In July it’s not uncommon to find one to three cars in every pullout from the park entrance all the way to the Lamar.

Slough Creek begins north of the Yellowstone Park boundary and flows generally south-southwest before joining the Lamar about 2/3 of the way down the latter’s canyon. About twelve miles of river (Slough is almost as big as the Lamar where they meet) stretch from the park boundary to the Lamar, comprising four meadows and a short slow-moving wooded stretch all separated by stretches of fast water ranging from 100 yards to about a mile in length.

From the park boundary to the end of the Slough Creek Campground Road, all in the backcountry, run the Third, Second, and First Meadow and Slough Creek Canyon. The Third and Second Meadow are separated by only small rapids and a screen of trees. The Second and First Meadow are separated by a half-mile of fast water with a couple good pools in the middle. The First Meadow and the Lower Meadow are separated by the Slough Creek Canyon, about a mile of steep and aggressive pocket water with a couple almost-waterfalls in it, followed by a half mile of slower riffle-pool water in the trees, and then several hundred yards of pocket water as the canyon spreads out into the Lower Meadow. At the bottom of the Lower Meadow, a bit under a half-mile of steep pocket water separates the meadow from the Lamar.

The water between the park boundary and the Slough Creek Campground all requires hiking. The Slough Creek Trail starts before you reach the campground on the campground road and offers access to the First, Second, and Third Meadows. The First Meadow is 2.5mi from the trailhead, the Second Meadow a bit under 5mi, and the Third Meadow about 8mi. Numerous backcountry campsites dot the Second and Third Meadow, and a private ranch actually sits just outside the park boundary between the Third Meadow and Frenchy’s Meadow to the north. The Slough Creek Trail is an extremely popular backcountry destination for hikers and anglers alike. This is a place you can hike 8 miles one way and still not shed the crowds. In fact the upper end of the First Meadow and the Second Meadow are usually less crowded than the Third Meadow. The fast water stretches between the upper meadows are usually much less crowded, but not empty.

To access most of the Slough Creek Canyon, drive to the end of the campground road and take the unsigned trail up the creek. The trail gets rougher and fainter as you go before disappearing completely in the upper end of the canyon where house-sized boulders and heavy rapids dominate. The footing in the canyon is terrible, but it’s also my favorite stretch of Slough to fish since it offers lots of small fish and a few big ones, plus low (but not nonexistent) competition. I (Walter) have seen bears on more trips into the Slough Creek Canyon than I haven’t. I carry two cans of bear spray whenever I visit this area.

Slough Creek’s Lower Meadow is accessed from the campground road. The upper half of this water as well as the short run of pocket water through the campground is more or less adjacent to the road.  The lower portion of the Lower Meadow as well as the short pitch down into the Lamar cuts diagonally away from the road to the Lamar. The Lamar and campground road make the two short sides of a right triangle, Slough Creek makes the hypotenuse. Many angler trails cut from the campground road to Slough Creek and run along it.

Lamar River System Angling 

The Fish

• Yellowstone Cutthroat: Yellowstone cutts are the dominant trout in the Lamar System. All other must now be killed. It is very unlikely that you will catch anything else these days. The average cutthroat ranges from 12-18 inches in most of the Lamar River and meadow portions of its tributaries. Rough sections of tributaries and all smaller tributaries are more likely to run 6 to 9 inches as these are nursery areas. Occasional very large fish are possible just about anywhere but are most common in lower Slough Creek and canyon sections of the Lamar; we’ve seen a couple 24-inchers in these areas.
• Other Trout: Rainbow or heavily-hybridized cutthroats are still theoretically possible in most of the Lamar Drainage, but they are now rare. If you are certain a trout is a rainbow or hybrid, it must be killed.

The Fishing

Beside the crowds, four factors govern the fishing in the Lamar Drainage: mud from the intense and long-lasting spring runoff as well as summer thunderstorms, consistent summer and early fall mayfly hatches, consistent late summer terrestrial fishing, and the onset of cold weather in the fall.

The spring runoff lasts longer here than anywhere else in our operations area. Slough Creek occasionally has not even started the runoff when the park season opens. This is most likely in years with cold springs when Memorial Day falls early. If Slough happens to be fishable on the opening weekend, DO IT! The best fishing of the season is likely to happen opening weekend. Strip large Woolly Buggers and sculpin patterns in the meadows, and cover water quickly.

Otherwise, the streams in the Lamar System are out of play until at least June 20 and more commonly July 4. It is not unusual for good fishing to begin as late as July 10-15, and perhaps one year in ten it’s sometime after July 15. Runoff is no joke here. The Lamar is a placid meadow river in late summer and fall, but it rages in June. The Lamar carries 1/10 the water the Yellowstone at their confluence does in September, but it can actually carry more water in June. This is due to the high mountains bounding the Lamar Drainage that can receive 500 inches of snow in the winter. Cooke City at Soda Butte Creek’s head is a popular backcountry ski destination well into June, most years.

Once the runoff recedes, the Lamar and Soda Butte Creeks can get muddy at the drop of a hat. Both have steep clay banks in their headwaters that run mud into the rivers after even light sprinkles. Keep an eye on the stream gauges in the Links section. When big spikes in flow occur, the Lamar and Soda Butte turn to a disgusting red-brown color that carries so much sediment the waves in the riffles scarcely break. The fishing can be very good during rainstorms and for a few hours when each stream clears, but fishing is out of the question when they are muddy. Slough Creek is much more resistant to mud, but everybody who arrives planning to fish Soda Butte or the Lamar then heads over to Slough Creek and jams the Lower Meadow like an eastern stream on stocking day. I don’t exaggerate here. People will fish 25 feet from strangers on lower Slough when the Lamar and Soda Butte are muddy. No, nobody does any good in such crowds.

When the water is clear in midsummer, mayfly hatches typically drive the fishing. Hatches are most consistent on Soda Butte Creek and least consistent on Slough, but good hatches occur everywhere. Hatches begin sometime between 9:00AM and noon and typically end before 2:00. They’re even important in rough water stretches. By far the most important insects are several species of Green Drakes (not Gray Drakes, see the note below) from size 10 to 14-16. The trout key on these larger-than-average mayflies that hatch almost every day. In rough areas and on Soda Butte Creek it’s even possible to fish high-floating Green Drake patterns as attractor dries, though this tactic worked much better 15-20 years ago than it does now.

Rough water areas in the Lamar System do not produce as many large trout as the meadows, but they are usually in better condition. This fish came from the pool pictured above.

The drakes are usually joined by PMD in July and early August. Often there are more PMDs than drakes, but the trout except perhaps on Slough tend to prefer the drakes. Fishing a PMD emerger or nymph behind a dry drake is often a good tactic, though when the drake hatches are good swapping the PMD of any kind with a CDC drake emerger fished wet usually works better.

Other good July hatches are evening tan caddis hatches and Yellow Sally and Little Olive stoneflies. The tan caddis usually hatch from sunset until dark, which is unfortunately after fishing ends at official sunset. Yellow Sallies and Olive Stones are most common in rockier sections of Slough Creek and Soda Butte Creek. They typically only bring fish up for a week or so each July. Salmonflies and Golden Stones hatch sporadically in rough sections of Slough Creek and more heavily in the Lamar River Canyon. These are very short-duration hatches, a matter of a couple days most years, but if you hit the Lamar Canyon right in early July you can get a 50+ fish day.

There’s also a smattering of other mayflies of one type of another that hatches through the summer, but they usually fall into “pale” categories that can be matched with PMD imitations and “dark” categories that look like drakes. In any case, there are usually more PMD and drakes.

In August, full-size drakes decline and are mostly replaced except on the upper Lamar and upper Soda Butte by Little Green Drakes (Flavs, maybe?). These are generally a #14. PMD hatch with them for a while before petering out and being replaced by very early BWO. These BWO are basically straight gray, rather than olive as the name “Blue-winged Olive” would suggest. The more-consistent August fishing (and late July fishing when hatches aren’t happening) occurs with terrestrials.

Ants are the star of the show in the Lamar Drainage. Have a range of tiny black ants, slightly larger cinnamon ants, and ants with red heads and black abdomens in #16-20. It’s a good idea to carry all except the tiny black ants in traditional “fur” versions, downwing flying versions, and parachute versions. You only need to carry the tiny ant in the traditional version. Foam ants can also work, particularly if you wish to fish a tiny dropper nymph underneath. Hoppers can work in the Lamar Drainage, but fish in the meadows tend to get hoppered to death. Stick to tiny oddball hoppers except in the Lamar Canyon, where on occasion great big ones and Mormon crickets can work.

By late August nights start getting cool and mayfly hatches shift into the afternoon, often starting no earlier than 3:00 by Labor Day, after many people have given up. Morning dry fly fishing switches over to midges, if there’s any dry fly fishing at all. Look for fish rising slowly and lazily in the sun-warmed tailouts of pools. #20 black CDC midges are usually the ticket for these fish. Midge pupae also become good choices at this time, possibly displacing the slender #16-20 mayfly nymphs that usually work well as dropper nymphs under large drake patterns or hoppers when you’re prospecting.

In late August, larger rusty tan “Drake Mackerals,” begin to hatch. They almost always pop in the afternoon and can get the trout as excited as the earlier Green Drakes, though these hatches probably aren’t as consistent as the Green Drakes.

Scattered BWO and Drake Mackeral hatches can continue into October, but after September 15-20 the fishing gets spotty in the Lamar Drainage due to cold nights chilling these relatively small high-elevation streams. It’s not uncommon to find ice in backwaters on late September mornings. This cooling drastically slows down fishing in October. In effect, the Lamar Drainage shifts into winter sometime in early October, with water temps in the 30s or at best low 40s. Since many other areas fish better at this time, it’s best to go elsewhere after the first hard cold snap.

Of course the crowds are lower once the fishing gets slow, alas.

Green Drakes or Gray Drakes?

There are not many true Gray Drakes in the Lamar Drainage. There are a few, yes, but these swimming mayflies are relatively unimportant. The bugs everybody calls Gray Drakes are in fact one of three or four species of Green Drakes that in Yellowstone waters tend to look more gray than they do in many other places. If you see large (#10-12) grayish-olive (or olive-gray) insects with dark gray wings, you’re looking at a full-size Green Drake. If you’re seeing similar insects that are one or two sizes smaller, you’re looking at a Little Green Drake.

Western Green Drake mayflies are often mistaken for Gray Drakes due to the overall grayish coloration.

They all tend to hatch in riffles and at the heads of pools, and attract aggressive rises from trout. These collectively are the most important insects in the Lamar Drainage, with one species or another hatching in at least small numbers every day from the end of runoff until late September, sometimes alongside other species of bugs. The trout sometimes don’t key on them, particularly on Slough Creek where the fish are much spookier than elsewhere in the Lamar Drainage, but they usually do. Even if there are more of a smaller mayfly hatching, don’t hesitate to fish a (gray-colored) Green Drake imitation ahead of a smaller bug. Even if there is only a handful of Drakes popping, it will amaze you how often the fish will choose the larger fly.

Hatch Chart

Top 10 Flies

1. Furimsky’s Foam Gray Drake, #14
2. PMD Sparkle Dun, #18
3. Pink Bob Hopper, #14
4. Bicolor Fur Ant, #16-20
5. Cinnamon Flying Ant, #16
6. Lamar Midge, #18-20
7. CDC PMD Emerger, #18
8. Gray CDC Emerging Dun, #12-16
9. Gray Glass Caddis, #14
10. Jujubaetis, #20

Links

• Lamar River Stream Gauge: This gauge is near the Lamar’s mouth, so it is a bit “behind the times” in terms of showing flow spikes due to rain.
• Soda Butte Creek Stream Gauge: This gauge is at the park’s northeast entrance near Soda Butte’s headwaters. It therefore responds very quickly to rain on Soda Butte’s headwaters to tell you when the mud’s a’coming.

Madison River System: Description and Access

All rivers in the Madison system are easy to access in their most-popular sections. They also all tend to run rather tea-colored due to tannin staining from the immense stands of evergreens (mostly lodgepole pine) in the headwaters of both the Firehole and Gibbon and most of their small tributary creeks. They also tend to show a lot of “scum” on the surface, especially the Firehole. While this scum looks almost like laundry detergent, it’s from the immense mineral loads created by the hot spring basins. Touch the water and you’ll understand how mineral-rich these waters are – the water actually feels soapy or greasy. You wouldn’t want to drink it…

Otherwise, the waters in this system are very different from a description standpoint. The Gibbon in particular differs hugely from the Firehole and much of the Madison. As such, there are separate sections on description and access for each stream.

Firehole River Description and Access

The Firehole heads at fishless Madison Lake west of Shoshone Lake in Yellowstone’s southwest corner. It then flows basically north to Madison Junction. In its headwaters the Firehole is a remote backcountry creek, the lower portion of which can be accessed via an easy trail open to bicycles (a rarity in the park). For the remainder of its journey, the Firehole is paralleled by roads at a distance of a few feet to perhaps a mile. It is mostly fifty feet to a couple hundred yards from the road. Where it is further from the road, obvious flat and heavily-traveled trails (some official and some not) provide access. These include service roads, including another one open to bicycling. From around June 5 through the rest of the month and again in September and early October, it’s hard to find a section of the Firehole downstream of Old Faithful to fish out of sight of other anglers, even as far off-road as it’s possible to get.

From its headwaters to the Old Faithful closure, the Firehole is a fast-flowing stream in the woods. At Kepler Cascades it cuts down into a narrow and nasty canyon for about a mile to the start of the Old Faithful closure at a road bridge. When the river reappears and reopens at another bridge adjacent to Biscuit (geyser) Basin, it has doubled in size due to the inflow from Upper Geyser Basin centered on Old Faithful. It soon gains inflow from Iron Spring Creek and the Little Firehole River, which join 100 yards up from the Little Firehole’s own confluence with the Firehole. From this point down to the start of the Firehole Canyon,  the Firehole is a meadow river, really a giant spring creek due to the geyser inflows. It’s rich and weedy, full of vast numbers of only a handful of types of insects on which the abundant trout feed.

Typical structure on the Firehole River: shallow riffles feeding into deep geyser rock pools

In this meadow section, the Firehole flows with riffle-pool character over a generally shallow and broad bed of lava rock and geyser deposit. Often the “riffles” are actually shallow and broken rock shelves, but they function just like gravel and cobble-bottomed riffles so long as you fish the deeper spots among the shelves. Occasionally long pools intrude for 25 yards up to a mile or so. These pools typically hold larger but less-numerous and spookier trout. Even in fast-flowing areas it’s important to watch your step. Sudden extinct hot spring holes (and some cold springs) appear almost at random and the bottom may drop from 18″ under the water surface to effectively bottomless. Numerous geysers, mud pots, and hot springs line the Firehole’s course through this stretch, by far the most famous stretch of the river and the one that receives 99% of the pressure. The Park Service is getting very aggressive about preventing anglers from walking in hot spring areas, even those with established game and angler trails. The future of accessing large swathes of the Firehole is thus very much up in the air.

At Firehole Cascades, the Firehole leaps another waterfall and becomes a canyon river for its remaining run to Madison Junction. This stretch is paralleled by the one-way Firehole Canyon Drive. Often the drive is feet from a vertical drop into the river canyon, but access is tough due to steep canyon walls and deep, fast water. By far the best fishing in the canyon takes place downstream of Firehole Falls, below which run-up fish from Hebgen Lake on the Madison west of the park can reach. Between Firehole Cascades and Firehole Falls, the river is in a narrow gorge with only a few access trails, and the fish populations are isolated from either heading down to the lake or fleeing into cold tributary creeks during the hot summer months, so fish counts are poor.

Gibbon River Description and Access

The Gibbon River begins at Grebe Lake in the north-central part of the park and flows predominately southwest on its journey to join the Firehole. For the first half of this distance, it’s a small stream flowing through a mix of pine woods and small meadows. From Grebe Lake on to Wolf Lake and then down to Little Gibbon Falls at the head of Virginia Meadows, it’s a remote backcountry creek choked with downed trees. From Little Gibbon Falls to Virginia Cascades, it’s still a small creek but it’s much more accessible, paralleled in the upper reaches by the flat Wolf Lake Trail and in the lower reaches by the Virginia Cascades Drive. At Virginia Cascades, the Gibbon jumps into a short and hard-to-access canyon away from the road, and it’s again choked in trees (and also swamp!) down to the head of Norris Meadow, which is where it starts becoming a serious stream where the Norris-Canyon road segment crosses it.

The Gibbon’s main coldwater tributary Solfatara Creek joins adjacent to Norris Campground in Norris Meadow and almost doubles the Gibbon’s size. Heavy pressure occurs adjacent to the Norris Campground, which is the easiest-access portion of the Gibbon to this point. The Gibbon snakes through Norris Meadow, then departs it shortly after it’s crossed by the Norris-Mammoth Road segment. Here the Gibbon makes a long arc around Norris Geyser Basin, far from the road. Access here is limited to a couple unofficial trails that start either from the upstream end (up on a hill overlooking the geyser basin), or from the first of the Gibbon’s major meadows, Elk Park.

From Elk Park to Madison Junction, the Gibbon is generally paralleled by the Norris-Madison road segment, though after a change in the road alignment in 2009 that moved the road away from the stream, a 2mi section of the Gibbon upstream of Gibbon Falls is on the other side of a large hill choked in downed timber and so effectively in the backcountry. There’s no official trail here, but there are obvious angler trails that followed the old road grade which has been “restored” to natural condition, even though this restoration is arguably as jarring as the road was.

Typical pocket water in the Gibbon River Canyon. This is near Gibbon Falls.

Norris Geyser Basin warms and broadens the Gibbon substantially. From this point down, the Gibbon is too warm to fish well in midsummer, though it never gets as warm as the Firehole and may fish in the mornings in early July and late August.

Elk Park is a 2mi meadow of which the first mile is upstream away from the road and the second mile is beside the road. Elk Park is separated from Gibbon Meadows by the 1mi Gibbon River Rapids, which are actually shallow lava rock ledges over which the river flows steeply. Gibbon Meadows is an even larger meadow. There’s little fish habitat in the rapids. The meadows are a different story. The river flows in many snaking bends through the meadows, and it’s generally very slow and deep. Access is easy, but fishing is hard because of the slow, clear, fertile water. These meadows fish like spring creeks.

At the bottom of Gibbon Meadows, the Gibbon starts cutting into the Gibbon River Canyon. From here most of the way to Madison Junction the Gibbon flows in a mix of pocket water and riffle-pool water, interrupted by Gibbon Falls and the short steep-walled canyon section immediately downstream of the falls. As noted already, 2mi of this water is out of sight of the road and requires hiking to access. Note that the upstream end of this water requires walking on the reclaimed road bed (now covered in grass and lodgepole seedlings) on the east side of the river, while at the downstream side you must walk on the west side of the river. There’s a mandatory stream crossing about half a mile from the top of this roadless segment, a crossing that’s difficult or impossible for the first few weeks of the season. The rest of this section is easy to access except for the dense new-growth lodgepole and occasional hot springs. Even the area immediately below the falls can be accessed after about June 10 by hiking up from a picnic area downstream of the falls.

One more meadow opens up at the bottom of the Gibbon River Canyon, and the Gibbon stays in this glass-smooth meadow down to its confluence with the Firehole.

Upper Madison River Description and Access

The Madison in YNP runs first west alongside the West Entrance Road, usually in sight of it, for most of its run in Yellowstone Park. It then cuts northwest out of sight of the road for its last couple miles to the park boundary and Hebgen Lake (a reservoir on the Madison) that backs up the river to about a mile west of the park boundary. The Madison in the park can be divided into four approximate segments, of which all but the last run close to West Entrance Road.

In its first segment, which begins where the Firehole and Gibbon combine, the Madison is a braiding, slow-moving meadow river with easy footing but difficult trout. This is in effect a large spring creek. The banks are generally grassy, with a few patches of burned-over lodgepole pine forest.

The meadow portion of the Madison gradually shades over into the Madison River Canyon. While there are short stretches of pocket water and many large boulders in the middle of the river here, most of them covered in log jams, this is still not a fast-flowing stretch of river. There are riffles and pools, but the footing is still manageable for most anglers and there’s no raging whitewater. This section of the Madison is still effectively a spring creek, just not a slow and glassy one. There’s a short section that’s closed to angling at the bottom of the canyon to protect breeding swans, which are often visible.

The West Entrance Road crosses the Madison at Seven-Mile Bridge, so-called because of its distance from the West Entrance. About half a mile below this bridge the Madison gains its third character. From here down almost to the West Entrance the Madison is extremely broad, shallow, and riffly. Fish populations are limited to small fish in this stretch. There just isn’t enough habitat. Portions of the lower end of this stretch are out of sight of the road, but you aren’t missing much.

In sight of the West Entrance, a gravel road cuts off the main road northward to the river. From the point the road hits the river, the Madison cuts northwest in a series of deep runs and pools with grassy banks. These are the Barns Pools and Beaver Meadows and represent the Madison’s last character inside (and briefly outside) Yellowstone Park. This river character extends down to Baker’s Hole Campground just west of the park boundary north of West Yellowstone. Access is by walking downstream from the end of the Barns Pools road just mentioned or up from the campground. Make sure to have a Montana license if fishing the middle section of this portion of the Madison, because the river crisscrosses the park boundary line in many snaking curves. Good angler trails follow this portion of the Madison, and at least in the fall when the browns are running, pressure is heavy even as far from the road as you can get.

Madison River System Angling

The Fish

Most of the Madison River System in YNP was originally fishless due to waterfalls. While fish native to the basins are being introduced above waterfalls so these areas may serve as refuges for threatened species as other areas warm due to the climate change, non-native trout still dominate in the Madison System, unlike elsewhere in YNP. Rainbows and browns are therefore widely protected with catch and release regs, which they do not enjoy elsewhere.

• Rainbow: Rainbow are the most common fish in the Firehole downstream of Old Faithful and the Madison. They are also found in most Firehole and Gibbon tributary streams, in small numbers in the Firehole from Kepler Cascades to Old Faithful and the Gibbon between Virginia Cascades and Elk Park, and significant numbers downstream of Gibbon Falls. Resident fish generally average 6-12 inches and reach 20 inches. Run-up fish from Hebgen Lake average 15-20 inches and reach 24 inches.
• Brown: Browns are common in the Firehole downstream of Kepler Cascades, in the Madison, and in some Firehole tributary streams. They are the dominant fish in the Gibbon River between Norris Meadow and Madison Junction as well as lower Gibbon tributaries. Resident fish average 6-10 inches in most fast water stretches and 10-18 inches in most meadow stretches, regardless of river segment. Run-up fish from Hebgen Lake average 16-22 inches and reach enormous size.
• Westslope Cutthroat: Westslope cutthroat are dominant in the Gibbon from Grebe Lake to Virginia Cascades and should see increasing population growth from Virginia Cascades to Norris Geyser Basin after recent introductions. Future introductions will likely spread populations further. Westies were the native fish of the Madison System downstream of assorted waterfalls prior to being wiped out by the 1950s.
• Brook: Formerly the dominant fish of much of the upper Gibbon, Brook trout were recently eradicated from the stretch from Little Gibbon Falls to Virginia Cascades. They are now the dominant fish only from Virginia Cascades to Norris Meadow in the Gibbon, in the Upper Firehole down to Old Faithful, and in a few tributary streams. They average 5 to 9 inches.
• Whitefish: Whitefish are found throughout the system downstream of Firehole and Gibbon Falls. They are most common in the Madison near the West Entrance, which has few resident trout (but many big seasonal migrants). Whitefish average 12-18 inches in the Madison near the boundary and 8-12 inches elsewhere.
• Arctic Grayling: Grayling are found in the Gibbon from Grebe Lake down to Norris Geyser Basin. They dominate in Grebe and Wolf Lake but are less common in flowing water, but are still catchable. They average 6-10 inches and might reach 14 inches.
• Yellowstone Cutthroat: Small numbers of Yellowstone cutthroat are found in the upper Little Firehole River and may trickle down occasionally to the Firehole at Biscuit Basin. They average 10 inches. They may also be eradicated and replaced with Westslopes, since the Yellowstone cutthroat is not native to the Madison System.

The Fishing

As noted several times, the Madison System in YNP is primarily a May-June and September-October fishery. Otherwise, the small stream headwaters of the Firehole and Gibbon are the main fisheries in summer, as are tributaries of both streams that are even smaller. Some Firehole tribs receive “refugee” fish from the Firehole itself. These fish tend to run 14-18 inches and are some of the spookiest trout in the region. They’re big fish in skinny water, and they don’t like it. Otherwise, small streams throughout the Madison System fish similarly to small streams described in the “Small Streams” section below.

During the good seasons, fishing tactics can be addressed in three cases by water type and one case by the trout you’re targeting: Riffle-pool water, long pools, pocket or canyon water, and fall-run fish.

When fishing the warm, weedy, knee to waist-deep riffle-pool water that dominates on the Firehole and much of the Madison, swinging soft-hackled wet flies is by far the dominant tactic. This works well at all times, but is especially good when caddis hatches are underway or imminent. Look for occasional splashy rises to indicate caddis hatches. On the Firehole, the White Miller or Nectopsyche caddis is dominant. This caddis is “blond.” and very active, with long antennae that need not be imitated. Fish a soft hackle matching this caddis along with another, usually a soft hackle Pheasant Tail with a glass beadhead works well. When trout are rising aggressively, swap one of the soft hackles for a buoyant dry caddis. PMD and BWO may also hatch in the riffles, but are less important than the caddis. It also makes sense to nymph the deep geyser rock ledges that break up the riffle-pool areas, especially in late June and early September when the light is high but the water is low.

The long, dead-slow pools are best during hatches. On the Gibbon these are typically mayflies, of which the assorted drakes get the fish the most excited. On the Firehole and Madison, caddis or smaller mayflies (BWO or PMD) are more important than big mayflies. Absent a hatch, nymph the heads of pools or strip streamers. The long, slow pools always fish better during hatches, and their fish are much spookier than fish in faster areas.

In pocket or canyon water, especially below Firehole Falls and in the Gibbon Canyon, attractor dry-dropper combos usually work very well. Fish larger Chubby Chernobyl-style flies and nymphs as large as #12 while the water is still high and dirty, then gradually shift down to attractor dries in the #12 range with #16 droppers. Salmonfly and Golden Stonefly hatches can bring up fish intermittently in the Firehole Canyon from the season opener until mid June and in the Gibbon and Madison Canyons in mid-June.

The canyon type of water typically fishes best in June, though it can produce in the fall as well. Cover water quickly and make short, accurate casts and drifts. Downstream of Gibbon and Firehole Falls an occasional large fish is possible early in the season, usually a run-up trout that overwintered in the comparatively warm rivers rather than heading back to frozen Hebgen Lake before it warms up. Otherwise, most trout caught in this water is under 12 inches except below the Gibbon and Firehole Falls after October 1. This water type is more consistent than those mentioned above, though.

Brown trout begin trickling into the Madison near the West Entrance in late August. Intermittent pulses of rainbows join them. Numbers of runners intensify and the fish spread all the way to Gibbon and Firehole Falls as the fall progresses. Heavy numbers and heavy angling pressure occurs in the fall. The Madison, Lower Firehole, and Lower Gibbon are really the only areas within our area of operations in YNP that are likely to be truly crowded after the first week of October. Crowds stay heavy during pleasant weather until the end of the season, which makes dreadful weather (rain, snow, cold, wind) offer the best fishing.

To target these fish early in the fall, stick to the heavy runs and heads of pools on the Madison near the West Gate. Fish nymph combos. As the fall progresses and the fish spread out, large riffle-pool areas further up the Madison can produce with large wet flies, and streamers join the nymph rigs in the heavier water. Dry flies seldom work for these fish, but seldom isn’t never. By October 10 at the latest, run-up fish fish can be found at least intermittently in pocket water areas. Nymphs and eggs are best for these fish.

Hatch Chart

Top 10 Flies

1. Glasshead Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail, #16
2. White Miller Soft Hackle, #14
3. CDC & Elk White Miller, #14
4. Purple Hazy Cripple #18
5. Grey Baetis Sparkle Dun, #18-22
6. Coachman Trude, #12 (rough water)
7. Beadhead Prince, #16
8. Brown Girdle Bug, #6
9. Bead, Hare, & Copper, #12
10. Olive Conehead Woolly Bugger, #6

Links

• Firehole at Old Faithful Stream Gauge: This gauge is more representative of the Firehole upstream of Old Faithful where it’s fishable summer-long.
• Lower Firehole Stream Gauge: This gauge is near the Firehole’s confluence with the Gibbon and is more representative of the Firehole downstream of Biscuit Basin. This gauge is below all geyser and tributary inflows, though. The Firehole will run slightly clearer and warmer in early June and slightly cooler close to Old Faithful from late June onward.
• Gibbon River Stream Gauge: This gauge is downtream of most of the Gibbon’s warm water inputs.
• Madison River Stream Gauge
• Old Faithful Weather
• Norris Weather
• West Yellowstone Weather

YNP Small Streams: Description and Access

Most small streams in Yellowstone resemble the larger streams into which they run near their confluences. Hellroaring Creek enters the Yellowstone’s Black Canyon in a small canyon of its own. The Little Firehole River is a meadow creek for several hundred yards upstream from the Firehole, as is Soda Butte Creek (Lamar System) tributary Pebble Creek.

These characters often but not always change once the creeks move some distance away from their parent streams. The Little Firehole flows from a small canyon with a waterfall near its upper end. Pebble Creek likewise exits a canyon less than half a mile from its confluence with Soda Butte. Hellroaring Creek remains a fast-flowing stream throughout its run through Yellowstone Park, however, though it has small meadows in its headwaters beyond the park boundary and several miles from the Yellowstone.

Large, rough mountain creeks are one type of small stream in Yellowstone. This is actually the upper Firehole River.

With the exception of a few meadow tributary creeks, particularly small brook trout streams that feed the upper Gardner River and most of the Firehole’s tributaries, most small streams in Yellowstone Park have at least some rough footing, and most have considerable stretches that are fast, bouldery, and turbulent. They’re mountain creeks in spots, in other words. Sometimes these spots aren’t where you’d expect them, though. Pebble Creek is a meadow stream in its headwaters, then a fast-flowing and rugged canyon creek, and finally a meadow creek again, for example.

Maps are your friends in figuring out a stream’s character away from the road. Where the contour lines stack up, it’s a good sign a creek is fast and turbulent. Except in extreme headwaters areas way up in the mountains, this doesn’t say anything at all about the quality of the fishing. Many steep and rough small streams hold larger fish than meadow sections of other streams.

Maps are helpful in another way: finding your way on the creeks you’re fishing. Many small streams are crossed by roads or trails, but few are paralleled by roads or trails. The roads and to a lesser extent the trails typically follow large streams and rivers, since these usually provide easier alignments. So accessing small streams often begins at bridges (road or trail) or fords (trails). Simply fish upstream or down. Larger streams often get fished pretty hard within a quarter-mile or a half-mile of bridges or other developments like campgrounds or picnic areas, particularly when road crossings occur in meadows where the streams look gentle and inviting. Tiny creeks that are steep, fast, and/or brushy may not get fished much even right at bridges.

In general, pressure is heaviest on streams that hold occasional large fish, that offer easy access, and where roads do follow along streams. Steep mountain streams that never come within sight of the road might not see more than a few anglers a season. Simply navigating such streams has a lot to do with that. Canyon creeks you can jump across in burned-over timber canyons are crisscrossed by downed trees, covered by bushes, have banks to steep to climb and flows too fast to wade. For many anglers, simply getting around such streams is too difficult or doesn’t seem worth the effort. Be realistic in your own physical capabilities. Getting trapped with a broken leg in a nasty creek canyon that was too rough for you is a recipe for disaster.

YNP Small Stream Angling

The Fish

Fish populations in YNP small streams are highly varied. In most cases fish species will match that of the river or larger stream into which the creek flows up to the first waterfall on the creek, if any falls are present, though there are some exceptions. Fish size is likewise highly varied. In most creeks hosting brook trout, a hand-sized fish is a very good one, but many streams host spawning runs or an occasional “slumming” trout from their parent rivers that might be just as big as the largest fish in that parent river.

In general, most tributaries of the Gardner River hold small brook trout. Most tributaries of the Firehole and Gibbon hold browns, rainbows, and brook trout (the latter especially in upstream reaches). Yellowstone tributaries hold cutthroat and sometimes rainbow and cutt-bow trout in their lower reaches and often brook trout in headwaters reaches if waterfalls are present. Lamar tributaries generally hold cutthroats, but some still hold remnant rainbow populations the park is trying to get rid of. There are some oddballs, however. One Yellowstone River tributary holds nonnative westslope cutthroat rather than the native Yellowstone cutthroat, and a Firehole tributary holds Yellowstone cutthroat when there were no trout at all in the creek to start with.

The Fishing

Small streams in Yellowstone Park all have very short seasons. Three factors explain why:

1. Spring runoff is a major factor on most YNP small streams. The only exceptions are creeks that originate or at least take a lot of their water from lakes.
2. Low flows in late summer can make many meadow streams and a few of the smallest steep mountain creeks either so small they’re impossible to fish ethically, with all their fish gathered into the few deep holes, or simply make the fish so spooky that they aren’t worth the trouble. 6″ spooky trout are specialty fish, to put it mildly.
3. Brook trout in small streams that lack waterfalls or other fish barriers often migrate several miles into remote headwaters areas to spawn starting in mid-August. It’s hard to justify hiking four or five miles for 6-8″ fish, even if they are pretty.
4. Winter begins to bite on small streams no later than mid-September, sending fish to hunker down in deep pools with lockjaw for the long, hard winter.

The first streams to drop into fishable shape are those draining from small lakes. Unfortunately, there aren’t many such creeks in Yellowstone. Fast on their heels come many brook trout streams near Indian Creek Campground, as well as meadow streams draining the park’s central plateau rather than high mountains. Few mountain streams are ever low enough to fish prior to July 1, and some small streams of all kinds might not be quite ready before about July 15.

In years with good snowpack and summer rains, brook trout creeks can start getting shaky anytime after August 15, or even earlier the closer to the road you fish. In drought years, small meadow creeks holding other species can get too low even earlier. Larger meadow creeks draining the park’s central plateau, especially those with a small amount of geyser basin water, as well as mountain creeks at lower elevation (such as Hellroaring Creek feeding the Yellowstone) tend to hold on the longest, and can fish well on late September afternoons. A very small number of meadow streams with geyser discharge may fish in October, but there are so few of these that we don’t feel comfortable mentioning specifics.

Small meadow streams usually have spookier trout than rough mountain creeks, but they offer more casting room.

Most small stream trout in Yellowstone Park are unsophisticated towards the fly you’re using, and both brook trout (almost all of them) and almost any trout in fast-flowing and turbulent creeks can also be forgiving towards drag, splatting flies down, and other “mistakes.” That’s not to say such creeks are easy to fish. Trees and brush in your back cast, obstacles laying across the stream, and small targets often no larger than a skillet or shoe box mean that there can still be challenges involved. It’s just that these challenges are in getting the fly in the right spot in the first place, not in fly choice or how the fly behaves once it’s in the water.

The forgiving nature of most small stream trout in YNP places a premium on fishing an area before someone else has that day, and just getting on less-fished water in general. Small streams that receive heavy pressure, for example the brook trout creeks adjacent to the Indian Creek Campground, often get fished out by late July. Even a four-inch brook trout is going to stop eating during daylight when it gets caught a dozen times, or it will die from poor handling.

So long as you get away from areas that get fished hard, fly choice is easy on brook trout creeks and fast/broken mountain creeks. Opt for #10-16 attractor dry flies or hoppers that you can see. If particular insects are hatching, it may be necessary to match their size, but seldom even their silhouette, much less color or precise stage of emergence. When the vegetation, downed trees, and so forth allow, add a #16 beadhead nymph dropper. Often very short droppers of 6″ or so work well on small streams, when on rivers longer is often better, not least because shallow dry/dropper rigs are much easier to cast accurately.

There are some exceptions to the above, in particular meadow streams holding trout other than brookies. Fish in these water may be relatively easy soon after they clear, but as flows drop and the creeks get clearer in late summer, the fish get spooky towards angler approach, to shadows, to flies or fly lines slapping on the water, etc. Basically, fish in small flat water are osprey and otter bait in late summer, and they know it. Get sneaky, and on many creeks the same attractor dry fly or terrestrial flies useful early in the season still work.

Small but very pretty Yellowstone cutthroat trout like this one are a main quarry on small creeks in Yellowstone Park.

Fly choice can get more complicated on streams feeding the Lamar (or Soda Butte) and the Firehole. These streams hold cutthroats or rainbows and browns, respectively, and these fish can get spooky both towards shadows and so forth as mentioned above and towards fly choice.

This is particularly true of Firehole tributaries. These receive July and August runs of “refugee” trout from the Firehole escaping the river’s high summer water temperatures. Almost all of the Firehole’s larger trout run up one creek or another, and these are nervous Nellie fish in waters that can be almost too narrow for them to turn around in. 30-40 foot casts across grass with 15-foot leaders tapered to 6X and tiny ant, beetle, mayfly, or midge patterns may be required to fool these fish. They are the exceptions, though.

Hatches in small streams in YNP are seldom critical. When they are critical, hatches are identical to those on the parent rivers into which the creeks feed, though they may be shifted towards midseason a bit. On Firehole tributaries, PMDs and White Miller caddis hatches occur in July, for example.

Yellowstone Lakes & Ponds: Description and Access

Access to Yellowstone Park lakes varies as much as the lakes themselves. Yellowstone Lake and Lewis Lake, the largest and third-largest in the park, respectively, have abundant roadside access and allow power boats, while Shoshone Lake, the park’s second-largest, is completely in the backcountry and must be accessed by hiking or canoeing across Lewis Lake and up the 4-mile segment of the Lewis River between the two.

The above examples are all outside our operations area, but illustrative of the point. Within our ops area, fishable lakes are smaller, from a couple acres on up to several hundred acres in size. Most require hikes of half a mile (Trout Lake) to 3-5 miles (Grebe Lake), but two ponds and one swampy Slough within a few miles of Mammoth Hot Springs are drive-up fisheries.

All lakes within Yellowstone Park may be fished with belly boats or other human-propelled craft, provided you have a Yellowstone Park boating permit and have had the boat inspected by the Park Service for invasive species. Of course, hiking into a lake several miles off the road with a belly boat (to say nothing of a canoe) is not in the cards for many people.

While some popular lakes have firm banks all around or almost entirely around, most lakes have a mix of firm banks and bottomless mucky swamp that it is possible to get trapped in. Take care when walking or wading around lakes to avoid getting stuck in the muck. If there’s an established trail, usually the footing is fine, though in early June when the ground is still soaked from the spring snowmelt, some trails can be lying about how muddy they are.

Yellowstone Lakes & Ponds Angling

The Fish

As is the case with small streams, most lakes and ponds hold the fish species common to their parent rivers. For the few lakes largely isolated from larger bodies of water, the fish present are almost always those found in the closest water body.

Fish size in most lakes is slightly larger on average than in the streams nearby or feeding/draining the lake, though a few lakes with poor but not nonexistent spawning habitat may have MUCH larger trout of the same species. A couple brook trout lakes host brook trout in the 14-20″ class but drain into tiny creeks where a nine-incher is a lunker.

Three hike-in lakes in Yellowstone Park hold Arctic grayling. These are Cascade, Grebe, and Wolf. As of this writing, that’s also their 1-2-3 ranking in terms of angling quality. Historically Grebe was better than Cascade, but a recent fisheries project poisoned Grebe and replaced the non-native rainbow and lacustrine strain of grayling with a native-to-the-drainage strain of grayling and westslope cutthroat. In 2020 the lake was supposedly producing solid westslopes and grayling, but not yet at its former abundance.

The Fishing

With the exception of Blacktail Pond, which opens in early July, and McBride Lake, which is inaccessible prior to mid-late July due to a need to ford Slough Creek to access the lake, all lakes in Yellowstone typically fish best for the month after they become accessible. Many lakes are either still frozen or simply impossible to reach due to deep snow on the trails in the season’s first week or two. All lakes are ready to go by approximately June 10. and usually are fishing great by mid-month.

The fishing gradually tails off as the water warms in July, though smaller lakes at high elevation can produce somewhat all summer. Fishing improves on all lakes after mid-September and is typically decent in October.

There are two general categories of lakes in Yellowstone in terms of fish and fishing. There are lakes with a lot of small and aggressive trout and grayling, and there are lakes with far fewer trout that are much larger and more difficult to catch. Spawning habitat is the major factor here. These two divergent types of lakes generally require very different tactics.

Rare Arctic grayling are abundant in several area lakes.

On the “small dumb fish” lakes, the best tactic is to suspend either a small leech or damselfly nymph plus a small nymph or soft hackle or two nymphs or soft hackles under an indicator. Cast out along drop-offs and weed-beds and let the flies settle. Twitch the flies by giving the line a pull sufficient to move the indicator six inches to two feet. Vary the distance you move the bobber as well as the frequency you do so before switching flies. This is a great beginner tactic as well as hyper-productive.

In these lakes, rising fish are often seen. Either strip your soft hackles or nymphs just under the surface for hard strikes or fish one unweighted nymph or soft hackle below a small attractor dry fly. Chironomid or Callibaetis mayflies may be bringing rising trout, but the fish seldom care which dry fly you have on provided it’s the right approximate size and in front of their cruising pattern.

In lakes with larger, spookier fish, the same basic tactics may work, though if the fish are rising you will need to fish a more precise fly. Because fish numbers are lower, another good tactic is to creep along the bank with either two nymphs or a dry-dropper combo in your hand ready to cast. Scuds are good choices instead of conventional nymphs on occasion. When you spot a cruising fish, cast in front of the fish far enough that the flies reach the fish’s level just as the fish reaches the flies. This is easier said than done, but it’s often the most effective tactic. The fish need only open its mouth to eat. I got a 24-inch rainbow using this tactic once, in popular Trout Lake near Soda Butte Creek.

Another tactic on lakes with fewer fish is to fish leeches veeeeeeerrrrrryyyyy slowly on a crawl near the bottom. This requires a sinking line and can be done either from shore or by trolling from a float tube. Again, the goal here is to make the trout extend the least energy for a meal. This tactic is most effective for late fall brook trout.

Hatch Chart

Top 10 Flies

1. Black Sparkle Bugger, #12
2. Olive Mohair Leech, #12-14
3. Joffe Jewel, #10-12
4. Black Stillwater Softy, #16-18
5. Unweighted Prince Nymph, #16
6. Olive-Brown BLM Nymph, #16-18
7. Rickard’s Stillwater Nymph, #12
8. Driscoll’s Midge, #14-16
9. Parachute Adams, #14-18
10. Griffith’s Gnat, #14-18

Lakes holding smaller trout are ideal for beginner anglers.