Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Yellowstone in Winter

I'm talking about the Yellowstone River, of course. This winter's warmth has brought fishing opportunities to odd places on the Yellowstone, like this outing by some friends in early February.
Some other friends and I found a nice patch of rising cutthroat and whitefish up high later in the month, not that that's terribly uncommon.
Meanwhile, some other friends were "assaulting" Depuy Spring Creek in 50mph winds, which is also not uncommon. 
But now that it's March, everybody's thinking skwalas, and they can be found at more spots than the Bitterroot and Big Hole. I've personally seen at least one skwala on the upper Madison, lower Madison, Yellowstone, Gallatin,  Jefferson and the East Gallatin (or something similar in size and season - all black though). I've heard of them on the Missouri, and recently, the Owyhee in Oregon. There are many more skwala hatches throughout the West. Finding a fishable hatch might be the tricky part, but they're around. Go fish (maybe give it a month, though, in southwest Montana - couple weeks on the Bitterroot).

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