If you plan to fish Centennial Valley streams which are small, begin quite early in the day. This is because heavy daytime fishing traffic along them puts fish down until late evening.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks began Hoot Owl Regulations Thursday on several streams. These are closed to fishing from 2:00 PM to Midnight each day until lifted. You can see the lists of streams to which this applies on FWP.MT.gov.
Pelican Creek
Pelican Creek above its closure is opening to fishing on July 15th. It hosts Yellowstone cutthroat trout up to trophy size with no suckers or whitefish present. The ravenous post spawning cutthroat moving back to the lake will take any small or medium size fly offered. For comfort, consider wading wet. From the trailhead on the East Entrance Highway and a few miles east of the Yellowstone River bridge, it is an easy two mile walk to the creek in its meadow reach.
Beginning Monday, The Park will close fishing on the Madison River Drainage including the river itself, Firehole River, and upstream parts of the Gibbon River. This closure is mostly because of high water temperatures.
Thanks to Palisades Reservoir sending in cool, clear water to the river, closures such as going on currently in Montana and Yellowstone Park are very unlikely. Water could not be in better quality in all aspects. Short but best if you are interested in fishing the big stonefly hatch is from Spring Creek to Conant. This could be done more than once in a day, but the Spring Creek launch will surely be crowded. So consider doing Husky’s to Spring Creek because top of the hatch will be somewhere in between those two launch sites.
Bear Gulch
The increase in flow from Island Park Dam is to provide more water into the Crosscut Canal leaving the river at Chester Dam and going to the lower Teton River thus providing irrigation water to in that area.
For the best fishing success on the lower river, fish early in the day or during evenings. With oncoming even warmer weather terrestrial insects will be active both times. If you are exploring shallower water, consider wading wet. One thing about hot, dry weather, it brings on terrestrial insects. So survey your ant, beetle ad hopper patterns. Anywhere on the river, you are going to need them soon!
Oncoming heat means that fish will be moving to deeper, cooler waters in all impoundments. Best locations to fish in these will be submerged springs and creek mouths. A few high elevation still waters may be best for daytime fishing, such as Aldous, Blair and Horseshoe Lakes, Snow Creek Pond
Top water fishing is advancing up the Madison River with AM PMD spinner falls, daytime stoneflies and evening caddis hatches providing action. Green drakes are appearing on the Gallatin River and its stonefly hatch into Park water which offer good top water fishing because thundershowers along the Taylor Fork discolor the river below the Park boundary. Best technique for wind blown Hebgen Lake are leech patterns and damsel fly nymph patterns. Early and late in the day offer best fishing times.
Anglers are seeing success on patterns such as, Harrop’s CDC Parachute Spinner-PMD, Stealth Link Mercer-Green Drake, and the Palomino Caddis-Tan.
Fall River Basin stream now offering best fishing conditions in the region. That includes fishing success, scenery, and solitude. Northeast corner streams rounding into shape, but upstream Thundershowers will discolor the Lamar River. Trout Lake is mossing up, so dry flies and nymphs below an indicator are best methods. Beula and Riddle lakes offer fastest action of any park still water.
Run-off is gone from Fall River Basin streams, and their top water fishing is improving by the day. PMDs and yellow sallies are numerous. Even damsel flies are hatching and their life cycle patterns bring interest from foraging trout.
Patterns to try are the Missing Link Yellow Sally, Sparkle Dun-PMD Cream/Yellow, and Chubby Damsel- Blue.
Beula Lake
Looking for almost certain still water fishing success? Beula Lake right now is a great location to try. Packing a flotation devise the 2.5 miles into Beula from the Ashton-Flagg Ranch road is the best way to achieve this, but so will fishing at the inlet do the same. Get to the inlet by walking a couple of hundred yards along to south shore to the southeast corner of the lake. There is plenty of room on the small inlet delta here for a few fly fishers to present damsel fly and speckled dun life cycle patterns or even traditional dry patterns (like parachute adams) to foraging Yellowstone cutthroat trout, the only salmonid or game fish in the lake.
Almost all small streams are now open to fishing (Teton River drainage river drainage streams are rounding into fishing shape). Many, however, have restrictions. For example, the Blackfoot River drainage above the Blackfoot River Reservoir requires barbless hooks, no bait, and return of all cutthroat trout to water from which they are caught. Many waters require no harvest of cutthroat trout. Refer to Idaho Department off Fish and Game Fishing Rules and Regulations to determine which streams require return of cutthroat trout to waters from which they are caught.
Hatching Damsels
With hot weather coming up, expect that trout in many of our irrigation reservoirs will be moving to deep waters, and that shallower waters there and elsewhere will feature a growing amount of aquatic vegetation. Such will discourage cast and retrieve fly fishing and make early and late in the day top water fishing best. Finding the “taking depth” will be a best tactic. Do so by suspending such as a midge pupa pattern at different depths under an indicator. Speckled dun mayfly and damselfly activity can be present on many of our still waters and will be a “saving grace” for top water fly fishing enthusiasts. Damsel flies emerge mainly around aquatic vegetation mats and because of their numbers fish key on them.That suggests that their life cycle patterns are useful. Look for damsels having peak hatching activity during wind free and mild weather days.