January 24, 2010 Yellowstone River

Floated the Yellowstone today with a buddy of mine and conditions could not be more perfect. Chinook winds were down to 5-10 mph, which is very good for the Stone this time of year, and lots of cloud cover. Floated from 9th street bridge to Mayers, which is about a 2.5 mile float. Got out at 10am and fished till around 3:30 pm. Air temp was around 30 and water temp around 35 so we new the midge hatch would be pretty good. Starting around 11 am there was a great midge hatch that offered spectacular surface fishing. We saw a few pods rising and hooked a few on the dry. Once the wind picked up a little, we switched to a sculpin with a midge dropper. Dark brown scuplin #6 and a #18 midge in red was working well. After dead drifting the streamer for a while, and no action I decided to get a little more aggressive with it. A slow 2 second strip did the trick. After that we were hooking into fish for the rest of the afternoon. All Bows and NO whitefish today. I would also recommend tying a midge off the back of a small attractor fly such as an adams or trude. The fish were feeding quite actively on emergers, especially in the foam pockets.

Heading to the Lower Madison this weekend so Ill have a report early next week on it.