Angling in Yellowstone National Park

[1] Additionally, the park's remote sections provide anglers ample opportunity to visit rivers, streams, creeks and lakes that receive little angling pressure.

With the exception of one specially designated drainage, all the park's waters are restricted to artificial lures and fly fishing.

The National Park Service may also enact emergency closures and restrictions because of low water, high temperatures or fires.

[5] In fact, with the exception of the upper Yellowstone River drainage, all the lakes and streams above major waterfalls were devoid of game fish prior to government stocking operations.

[6] Trout have been planted in nearly all streams in the park except those that are tributary to Yellowstone River, and the experiment has been so successful that there are now but few places in this country where better sport can be had by the fisherman...In order that it may never be necessary to make any restrictions it is strongly urged that a small fish hatchery be established here.

Wading ashore with my prize, I had barely time to notice his size—a good four-pounder, and unusual markings, large yellow spots encircled by black, with great brilliancy of iridescent color—when back he flopped into the water and was gone.

Many native populations were displaced by non-natives, but there was quality brown and rainbow trout fishing in the Firehole, Madison and Gibbon river drainages.

Many of the serious writers in the sport used park waters to test, prove and write about new techniques, equipment and fly patterns.

Prior to Back's work, the only available serious reference for anglers was a 1921 Bureau of Fisheries publication entitled The Fishes of the Yellowstone National Park—With Description of Park Waters and Notes on Fishing, a publication that Back encouraged all prospective anglers visiting Yellowstone to read,[11][12] In 1938, at the same time Back was publishing his work, Dan Bailey, another eastern angler was opening Dan Bailey's fly shop in Livingston, Montana 55 miles (89 km) north of the Gardiner park entrance.

[14] Gardiner, Montana, although not the size or draw of West Yellowstone, got its own local fly fishing shop in 1953 when Merton J.

Howard Back was the first, but many influential anglers used Yellowstone as a backdrop for their angling stories, adventures and technical work.

Ray Bergman, the angling editor of Outdoor Life magazine, was a fan of the Firehole River and gave it many pages of coverage in his work Trout (1938, 1952).

Vint came along just as the hook went home, and some minutes later I had the satisfaction of having him take my picture as I held up the seventeen-incher with white steam of the boiling spring for a background.

The Gallatin in the park is small and twists and turns with numerous undercut banks and many runs, riffles and holes.

[2] The 19 miles (31 km) of the Madison in the park, although easily accessible, is not suited for beginners and offers technical dry fly and nymph fishing for rainbow and brown trout averaging from ten to fourteen inches (356 mm), with an occasional 20-incher.

Most of the river inside the park resembles a large spring creek and has been called the "world's largest chalkstream".

[10] The Madison is an early summer and fall river and offers poor fishing in midsummer because of high temperatures contributed by the Firehole.

Fishing in the fall is excellent[26] when significant numbers[26] of brown and rainbow trout enter the river from Hebgen Lake in Montana.

This spring-fed river flows through the most active geyser basins in Yellowstone Park, so the angler is often fishing against a backdrop of steam rising from a gurgling hot spring.

The Firehole provides excellent dry fly fishing from opening day until it warms too much from geysers by the end of June.

For the most part the Firehole is an easily accessible, slow moving meadow stream that demands careful presentations and imitative flies for the prolific caddis and mayfly hatches.

Below Knowles Falls, about four miles (6 km) upstream from Gardiner, anglers find browns and whitefish in addition to the rainbows and cutthroat trout.

[2] The Gardner River's pocket water, bouldered pools and runs offer good dry fly and nymph fishing, especially in the late summer and fall.

Although high runoff can impair early summer fishing, the Gardner does get a reliable hatch of large stoneflies in June and July.

Cutthroat trout in Slough offer good dry fly fishing with heavy hatches of caddis, pale morning duns, and large Green Drake in July.

Similar to the Lamar River, Soda Butte Creek can run high and muddy during spring run-off, an event that can last through late-July in some years.

The DeLacy Creek trail provides access to the northern and eastern shoreline via the Grand Loop Road near Craig Pass.

Most of the angling pressure is from spin fishers, but a few local fly anglers make the lake a regular stop, fishing the drop-off along the southwest shore with sinking lines and leech imitations.

The best times to fish Lewis Lake are at ice-out in mid-June, warm summer evenings, and late October, when the spawning brown trout become aggressive.

Streamers and leeches are effective in the early and late season with caddis the fly of choice on warm summer evenings.