mother of all hatches

The Mother's Day caddis hatch on the Yellowstone River is something fisherman dream about (so much so that it has its own blog). Bugs everywhere. Fish going crazy. The thing is the water has to warm up enough for the bugs to do their thing but once the water warms up too much, run-off begins making the river unfishable. It's the ultimate fishing crap-shoot.

The funky weather we've been having has had anglers from Yellowstone to Livingston holding their breath waiting to see if the hatch comes before the river gets blown out with snow melt.

On Sunday, I ran into our favorite guests from this winter, a couple from Livingston - he's a retired woodworker/fly fisherman and she's a school teacher. He told me he was waiting for the hatch just like everyone else and would give me the heads up if he saw anything. Well, at 7:30am yesterday morning he called to let me know the hatch was on and to be on the river that afternoon.

Around 2pm, after the sun had warmed the water, I headed out into Paradise Valley to find some fish. After fishing some nymphs and catching a whitefish, the water started popping with rising fish. I could see the caddis dancing on the water so I put on a tan caddis that I tied this winter for just this occasion.

After about 15 casts, I caught my first fish ever on a fly that I had tied. Sadly, it was a whitefish not a trout. Sick of the whities, I headed back towards the Park to find some trout.

I pulled off onto a gravel path just before Yankee Jim Canyon and walked down to the river. The 20 minutes it took me to drive 25 miles had given the caddis time to go nuts. They were everywhere.

I could also see the orange bodies of the native Yellowstone cutthroats as they launched themselves out of the water to gulp the caddis. (The birds were going crazy too; flocks of them skimming the water to eat the bugs). Again, I tied on a homemade fly and waded in. This time it only took only two casts to hook and land my first trout of the season, a nice 12" rainbow. I quickly realized that my fly tying skills need some work as my flies only lasted one fish before falling apart (before and after shot)


A couple casts later I landed a hefty cutt-bow and followed it with a good-size cutthroat

I caught a couple more fish on my flies before a storm whipped through the canyon and the skies opened up with a collection of rain, hail and snow. When I couldn't tell if the sound I was hearing was fish rising or hail hitting the water, I decided it was time to call it a day. And a good day at that at.