This month I will go where I have never gone before....

Oh yes, you do remember correctly if you have been a reader of photoandtravel.com for several years - I do fish the Firehole every June possible for over 30 years now! This year I will share several of the "best producing areas of the Firehole river and which fly to fish in June" if you are an experienced fly fisherman. If just beginning, I suggest other areas to “fish.”  These are not “easy waters,” and one can get discouraged if not proficient at mending their line, “landing the dry fly with the softness of a butterfly with tender feet” on the water, etc.    These are my three favorite areas to fish. Telling my "favorite places" is "where I have never gone in my fly fishing writing before."

 First, I like to stay at the Madison Junction Camp Ground inside the park (pictured above) which is conveniently located to all the areas I am going to point you to. It is a beautiful park, but no electrical, water, sewer connections at the sites. There is a convenient place near the entrance for dumping, refilling with water, and obtaining ice.  Generators are not allowed to run from approximately 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.  An excellent resource for park information is :http://yellowstone-park-guide.com/.  Reservations usually have to be made in advance to be certain of a camping area.  Camping is for RV, tents, etc.

Fishing The Firehole (prior to July 4th )*

The water in the Firehole often becomes too warm for quality fishing by the 4th of July each year. There will be some fish to be found, and some good ones, but rivers like the Madison, etc. offer much greater fishing after the 4th of July most years.

"Biscuit Basin itself is about a mile of winding meadow stream, deep in places, with an abundance of bottom drop-offs, weed beds and undercut banks providing holds and lies for the trout. The trout of this stretch are almost half-and-half rainbows and browns. It has always been too warm for brookies, which are mostly found now in the cooler water above Keppler Cascades. When the river was first stocked with trout in 1889 (it was barren of fish above Firehole Falls when white men first saw it in the 1830s) brook trout from the East were put into the stream. These quickly fled upstream to cooler water above Old Faithful. In 1890 browns were stocked, and in 1897 a woman named Mary Trowbridge Townsend wrote a lovely piece in Outing Magazine in which she tells of catching a "gloriously colored Von Behr (brown) trout of four pounds." http://www.yellowstoneflyfishing.com/fireholeriver.htm

"Fishing the smooth stretches of the Firehole, dry or wet, still requires subtlety. Biscuit Basin, Muleshoe Bend, Goose Lake Meadows, Ojo Caliente Bend, the Broads—all these pieces of difficult water require every skill one can muster because these are wild fish that have been fished over for ninety years, and they have learned much in that time."

At Biscuit Basin from the tourist bridge up to the bridge at the park road, this S curve has long been one of my favorite fishing places.  People will stop and take pictures of you fishing, video you, but they have never hindered my fishing.  Fishermen will come and go, but most don't stay long because these fish have seen a lot of flies, and you have to have very good presentation, and good fly selection to have a good day of fishing.  Looking over my notes I find the Caddis has worked best the last two hours of the day, and especially the last thirty minutes.  PMDs work good during the day, and nymph fishing with hare's ear, and caddis flies and caddis nymphs work good. Copper Johns are always a good choice as well as soft hackle flies.  I usually don't fish any flies over #16 and use a 6x, 9 foot leader. This is my best combination on all of the Firehole water, except I shorten the leader for some of the nymph fishing.    Some of he best fishing days of my life have been in this area.

Because of the increasing number of anglers in the park, more restrictive regulations have been adopted in Yellowstone. These restrictions include: season opening/closing dates, restrictive use of bait, catch-and-release only areas, and number/size limits according to species. A few places are closed to the public to protect threatened and endangered species, sensitive nesting birds, and to provide scenic viewing areas for visitors seeking undisturbed wildlife. Because of an Elk carass in the area 2007 I did not get to fish the Basin loop up to the road bridge - signs of Bear Presence – “Do Not Enter” was posted everywhere. There is a required fishing license for the park area and is only good for within the park. These can be purchased at all fly fishing stores in West Yellowstone, or within the park.

The tight loop of Muleshoe Bend is still a half-mile of excellent dry fly water.  The best fishing is prior to mid-June due to the water warming early.  There is a long riffle from the lower end of Muleshoe through the rest of Midway Geyser Basin. It is right beside the road and is an excellent piece of water for the beginner or children. It is loaded with insect life, mostly small, and the rough but not too uneven bottom offers good footing.  The usual PMDs, Caddis late evening, and Copper Johns anytime during the day have proven very effective. 

In summer the Fountain Flats are the dry fly fishers joy, but with winds up to fifty miles an hour it can demand some skilled horizontal casting. I find much of this area a little tricky to wade. The bottom is so different that most of the Firehole River that I fish. Watch out for the holes along the bank. I have seen a number of fishermen "go down" walking the bank. I have had some really great days at the last "pull-out" before the parking area, and about 200 yards down from the restrooms and picnic area also. An emerger BWO (green body) with a foam parachute hackle post worked great here in 2006.

At the very last before the river enters Firehole Canyon are a pair of long deep pools and some rippled water that I have found to produce very excellent fishing on "good fishing days."  I have found Copper John nymphs to work best here, unless there is a hatch, then match the hatch - of course!

I have found soft hackle flies to work good on all of the above waters.  It is not unusual for me to take many fish (Browns and Rainbows) 16 inches plus in size during a day.  There are some days "this just does not happen," but it happens more frequently than not, and has for over thirty years of fishing what I consider the world's finest waters (and I have fly fished from Argentina to Canada's borders, Africa, and much of the world).  Copper Johns can prove to be effective as a search pattern on most all of the Firehole waters.

"The Firehole, in spite of its late temperature tribulations, is still a magnificent trout stream, challenging and difficult as it has always been. It is beautiful and it is unique; the hot springs, geysers and other thermal features that cause its temperature problems also make it minerally rich, which benefits the creatures in it greatly. These thermal features lining its banks have caused both Ernie Schwiebert and National Geographic magazine to call it the strangest trout stream on earth. I guess that makes it official "*

*http://www.yellowstoneflyfishing.com/fireholeriver.htm

Happy traveling and happy fishing.