InsideSeam

The Stone is still dirty in the valley but is beginning to clear up by Gardiner. She should be ready to go on Wednesday.

The Gallatin is still off color with about 2 feet of visibility.

The Upper Madison is running cool and clear.

We floated from Ruby Campground to Storey Ditch yesterday evening. The fishing was pretty slow. We had fish looking, but few would commit. Popular hopper patterns weren't even getting looks. The banks were completely dead. The fish that we did see moved out of slicks, pillows and those weird mid-river seams.

This brown rose through the pillow of a large mid-stream rock to take a big golden stone pattern (if you look close, you can see the fly on the water):

Mason and I floated Lyon's Bridge to Palisades yesterday afternoon. The fishing was hit and miss. We caught some fish near Lyon's Bridge and then it turned off. Then the caddis and mayflies came out and the fishing picked back up. We managed to land a few nice browns with some smaller bows mixed in.

Andrew, apparently, crushed them on the Upper this afternoon, fishing down from $3 for a couple miles. Action improved with distance from the bridge. He loves to fish hoppers, and although he didn't move a single fish to the damn thing, he tossed a hopper-dropper rig all day. Not to be redundant, but all of his fish were on the dropper, which was an x-caddis.

[You may have noticed something about my bro by now -- he's more about changing water and presentation than flies. We learned that from our father, who taught us to fish with one fly -- a #14 hares ear -- while meat-fishing for Louie Lips on the Weber River:

(Since I'm slightly buzzed, and on a roll here, I'll continue the story.) After a decade or so, he (and thus, we) discovered the Henry's Fork and added the black bead-head bugger to the arsenal. Two decades into it, he/we are still fishing that same rig (albeit, some of us more than others).]

Also, Andrew drove down the Gallatin this afternoon and said it's totally blown out.

I fished the Gallatin up by Big Sky this morning. The water was up and off color. The bugs didn't start to come off until about 10am and when they did the fishing was marginal at best. I caught fish on a size 14-16 caddis with a yellow sallie nymph dropper.

Does anyone know anything about the gulper fishing on Hebgen Lake? We might try that out this weekend. Good luck out there!

Headed over to the Jellystone early this morning only to find a plug of mud smoking through the valley. So, we jumped in at Mayor's and floated to the highway 89 bridge.

Fishing: The bite was never exactly "on", but there was some decent action before 10:00. The highlights were a fat brown stuck right out of the gate while stripping a black Bow River Bugger, three 'bows in three casts at the head of an inside riffle, and moving (read: not landing) a big brown to a modified chubby chernobyl.

Weather: Calm and overcast early, then the wind picked up pretty good around 10:30--we weren't exactly disapointed to see the take out.

Food: Mark's In & Out Beefburgers for Quadburgers and Cadillac Gravy Fries.

Not sure how long that mud will last. It looks like it came from the Lamar:

The flows near Corwin Springs mirror the Lamar and appear to be dropping. However, the forecast shows a chance for more T-storms later today and tomorrow afternoon. We'll post any info we get, but if you're thinking of fishing the Yellowstone this weekend you should call a shuttle service or your favorite shop for current conditions.

We took a couple photos, but they were pretty marginal and poorly focused...next time.

This report was submitted via reports@InsideSeam.com yesterday afternoon. I was about to turn the guy into the FWP for violating the current restrictions.

Turns out the report is a bit dated (like, 9 months), but it's never too early to start thinking about late-season brownies...

"I went to Manhattan last evening and got some lines wet on the Galli. Started out underneath the Nixon bridge and moved upstream...Not the biggest fish I've caught in the Galli, but it felt like I was reeling in Rosie O'Donnell. ~Anonymous"

While I'm at it, here are a couple others:

Note the look of utter devotion (or, perhaps, disbelief) on Cory's face:

I wade fished the Upper Madison with a few friends yesterday evening. We pulled into the Lyon's Bridge parking lot to check out the water and a friendly older gentlemen coming from the Henry's Lake area said he saw several cars at Reynold's and Three Dollar access sites. While the Three Dollar area offers some great wade fishing we deceded to skip it in hopes of getting away from the crowd.

We fished from about 7:00-9:30 and caught fish on hoppers, caddis, yellow sallies, and caddis emergers. The fishing wasn't red hot but we managed to land some nice ones. The fish were most interested in smaller light colored caddis patterns. The mayflies came out late but not in large numbers like we had hoped. I tried a rusty spinner right before dark and caught a few smaller fish.

The older gentleman that tipped us off on the crowd up river felt inclined to give us his fish count on the way back to his truck..."landed 15 and missed about 20...on a size 16 tan caddis." Not a bad evening for the old buzzard.

Looking for a late meal after the evening hatch? The Claimjumper Saloon in Ennis is under new ownership and they are now serving food until 11pm. I recommend the Spicy California Chicken Sandwich.

I don't have time to flesh this report out now, but lets just say the fishing has been good on the Upper Madison. Speaking of the 'upper seven' (first seven miles below Quake Lake), Kelly Galloup of Slide Inn commented that, "it doesn't get easier".

These were the best producers for us:

Another nice fish falls for the x-caddis:

My brother, Andrew, floated Lyon's Bridge to Pallasades this afternoon with a wookie, I mean rookie (rod and oars). I skipped it in fear of the wind, heat, and less-than-stellar fishing I experienced last weekend. Apparently, my judgement is lacking (somehow I manage to continue reliving this 'epiphany'; see bias blind spot, pseudocertainty, anchoring, overconfidence, etc.).

Fish were routinely rising to smallish brown spotted foam hoppers. As previously mentioned, the oarsman lacked experience which inevitably leads to poor drifts in the middle of the river--not a problem this afternoon.

They did report a number of refusals, but suggested that short dead-drifts were to blame. I have a hunch that an ant or beetle hanging off the back of a hopper will kill it tomorrow, and I hope to find out.

Andrew took this photo of the virgin fly-fisher Nick (no offense meant by the link, it just seemed appropriate somehow):

I spoke to Ian Davis from Yellowdog Flyfishing Adventures this morning. He has been guiding on the Upper Madison (mostly Varney-Town) for the past few weeks. He has had good luck dead drifting bow river buggers and stonefly nymphs and dropping either a caddis emerger or PMD emerger off the back. He said he has seen some small floaters in the water, he wasn't sure whether they were trout or whities, but the carcasses are offering easy meals for the larger trout. The dryfly fishing has been decent, the smaller fish have been committing to PMD's and caddis patterns tight to the bank. I expect the fish to move back into the riffels and drop offs as the water level has dropped below 1500 cfs. No terestrial activity yet but be be ready. Be aware of the water temps and try not to over-exhaust the fish.

So, we went to cool off in the Gallatin last night. There was a good mix of bugs flying around. We caught some fish, but I got the impression that they'd seen a few flylines recently.

Most of the fish were small. Andrew reported catching a 15 incher with a comment like, "yeh, I almost got your attention for a photo...he was prolly this big [holds up hands to 10"]".

I tried several different caddis and attractor patterns. I'm sure any mid-sized dry would have worked. This tan x-caddis seemed to work the best:

Greg tried a few patterns also, before settling on a parachute adams. Andrew didn't have his fly box, so he stuck with the tan elk hair caddis that he stole from me at the truck. It worked fine.

There were a lot of big stonefly shucks laying around.

it's hot. do something else.