Yellowstone River - Fri, Aug 26th

Our guides have been continuing to stick to the stretches either up at the top of Paradise Valley or below Big Timber as these areas have been providing consistent dry fly fishing. Higher up the river has been better with ant, beetles, and small attractor dries for the dry fly angler. Fishing a large hopper with a small rubberleg behind it can be very good right now too, just expect to find plenty of whitefish along the way (but less than you'd get with a traditional nymph rig). There are lots of golden stones out and the fish have been keyed into these nymphs throughout the river for a few weeks now, especially in fast water.

Our emphasis the last few weeks has been hopper fishing and it has been very good most days. One key to success right now with hopper fishing is long drifts overwater with current to it. You'll find a few fish in the quiet waters, but running t hoppers over a long riffle or flat with some flow on it is pretty much a slam-dunk right now. If you're the 10th boat down a bank, you might want to try fishing out further or switching banks. We've been sticking with a few basic hopper patterns and getting the fish to eat one of them everyday but some days getting the right size and color is the difference between a dozen fish and 30 fish, so switch it up if you go through a few spots that you think should have produced because the fish are looking up right now.