Yellowstone Park, July 22nd, 2023

Areal photo of Beula ( foreground) and Hering Lakes

You can experience perhaps the best still water fishing in the whole region by visiting Beula Lake at the head of Fall River drainage. Here is how to get there and how to fish once there.

Travel the Ashton-Flagg Road from where it leaves US Highway 20 just south of Ashton all the way to the east end of Grassy Lake Reservoir in Wyoming. After leaving pavement at the Caribou-Targhee N. F. boundary, There is a long, dusty, pot hole pocked drive but with great scenery. At this point there is a small parking lot on the left with the Beula Lake trailhead. Your first quarter mile will be uphill, but the two miles afterwards features gentle ups and downs until the last few yards where the trail drops to the southeast corner of the lake. If you have not packed a flotation device, use the above photo to guide your walk east to the Fall River inlet where a sandy delta and meadow offers room for a number of folks to cast to and land fish. Yellowstone cutthroat ranging to trophy size are the only fish present other than forage minnows. If speckled dun mayflies are hatching, something like a parachute Adams, size 14, is all you will need to have a day of landing as many as thirty cutties. The same result can happen if you present your favorite dry damsel pattern. If fish are not rising to these, try any small dark leech pattern, traditional nymph ( prince, gold ribbed hare’s ear, zebra, etc)pattern or a small fly rod jig, and you could have the same results. If you have packed a flotation device, you can fish the entire lake and expect the same results. No hard sided boats, no motors, no man made development: just a hard to find tranquility and plenty of eager fish.

Looking at the above photo that is Hering Lake in the background. We will look at it in a later report.