I’ve Never Fished This River Before
Today I headed East at 4:30AM for a 6AM start on a river I’ve never fished before. Like the day after 9/11, America was never the same. So it was for the Yellowstone River on June 13, 2022. The immovable moved as the river witnessed historic flooding in Paradise Valley. Having fished the old...
www.pnwflyfishing.com
After skipping a day of my normal rotation due to some extreme heat we’ve been having here in SW Montana, I went back to the Yellowstone to explore more of the new river. It was the first overcast day we’ve had in a week and there was a cool, but light wind blowing. Made for a comfortable morning on the river. Got on river about 30 minutes before official sunrise and an hour before the sun would clear the mountains. The river had dropped ~ 700 CFS in the last week and now fully exposed the long gravel bar that blockaded access from the ramp.
Once I got going, I deliberately by-passed the first two upstream pools so as to make it a bit farther upstream during the morning before heading home. It proved to be a decent hopper day and that was the weapon of choice for most of the morning. At the mouth of a small spring creek, a fat, colorful cutthroat slowly engulfed a Cherry Pie hopper (creamsicle variation) and came to hand. Most fish came from the fast water seams where strong flows entered the pools. I also gave my Humpy Hopper a workout, but the Cherry Pie hopper was the best producer.
As I moved upstream from my favorite side channel it became even more evident that the floods had significantly altered the bank-side geography by cutting away sloping bank-side gravel and creating a sharp, deep edge. Edges that were once easily wadable (ankle depth) at these flows were now 3-4’ deep or deeper and not safely wadable. The upside however was the deep, strong flow had brought fish to the edge and they responded well to the hopper whenever I found a safe spot to cast from.
As I moved past a sharp riprap point that diverted flows into mid-river, I discovered the pool upstream had been altered significantly. For years, main flows had been mid-stream and the water closer to the bank, deep but very slow. This had been good cutthroat water, but today the strong flow was tight against the bank and favored browns of which several came to hand. Upstream was another big island that sheltered a once shallow but productive side channel. That had changed as well. The channel was wider and deeper from head to tail. The upper end of the island, once choked with willows and log jams was scraped clean. On the downstream end of the island and along its eastern bank, massive amounts of gravel and silk had accumulated and created an underwater bar well over 50-75 yards long. Where the river spilled into this newly deepen channel, a streamer nailed a nice rainbow.
As I headed back down river, I stuck to the eastern bank to see what was going on there. The most dramatic change was the establishment of a massive gravel bar that isolated the main flow from a long rip-rap bank. Where once the flow pushed up hard against the rip-rap it was now merely a small channel with a few breaches in the gravel bar providing some flow. This will dry up somewhat as we reach fall and winter flows, but today the fast water downstream from every breach held several cutthroats which eagerly attacked the hopper.
It was another productive morning on a river I had never fished before.
