Back From Yellowstone

For the past two weeks, I have wandered at will across Yellowstone National Park, always with two or three fly rods strung up and ready to go. I caught large brown, rainbow, and cutthroat trout and mountain whitefish. Taking a vacation with no special plans other than to fish was a lot of fun. The opportunity to wake up each day and decide where to fish on a whim was refreshing, but I'm nearly as excited to get back to my streams in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Caney Fork.

The fish above was caught on the Firehole River below the falls and was one of the fish that had made its way up from Hebgen Lake. Lots of great fish were caught so stay tuned for much more on this great fishing trip including plenty of pictures and even some pattern tips and recipes!

I expect some large trout to be caught on the Caney Fork over the next two months, primarily subsurface on nymphs and midges but also a few nice fish will come to streamers and even dry flies.

In the Great Smoky Mountains, rainfall over the last few days has helped to bump up stream levels. We can only hope for more rain as we go into the fall season but the fishing should be great regardless. Look for fall caddis, blue-winged olives, and still some slate drakes and golden stoneflies to keep the fish fed.  Drop a small nymph or midge under your dry fly to double the fun. Terrestrials will also account for some fish up until the first hard freeze so keep those inch worm and ant imitations handy. Beetles have been gone for a while but if you come across a particularly difficult fish, try a beetle on it.

The dry fly fishing should be good to great for at least the next month and perhaps well into November if we get a good year with no extremely cold fronts coming through until later in the month. Stock up on #12-#14 Orange Stimulators and #18-#24 Blue-winged Olive Parachutes and head for the mountains to enjoy the fishing before winter hits and slows things down.