Angler reports have been consistent the past week. Fishing around the Big Horn Basin has been good to excellent. The good-to-excellent part has been based on water conditions.
Due to the warm temperatures the past week, rivers have muddied up as some of the lower elevation snowpack has melted. The melt has also brought an increase in flows. If you are wading water that is off color, it is recommended that you use a wading staff to feel your way around to avoid falling and injuring yourself, break equipment or, worst case, hit your head and drown.
Expect temperatures to be mild around the northwestern part of Wyoming for the next few days. A high of 72 degrees in the Basin will add to the muddy water conditions on the Shoshone River, parts of the Bighorn River and the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone. Even though water quality is not clear and inviting, fishing can be quite good when the snowmelt flushes from an increased flow.
The increase in flow removes a lot of the frozen bank ice. Small trout, whitefish, suckers and minnows can be trapped under this ice. As the ice melts, these frozen delicacies drop out and drift with the flow becoming available to the surviving fish. This annual occurrence provides a easy meal and great protein supplement to help surviving fish get fattened up for the summer and fall seasons.
Insect larvae and nymphs also become trapped under the ice, which provides easy pickings and free snacks while the trout or other fish are looking for the fish that were trapped under the ice. Trout in lakes are particularly dialed in on small fish and insects trapped under the ice. Anglers that have previous experience during the ice-out on lakes know the trout cruise the icebergs and forage by grazing on the bottom layer of ice. The ice is gone on most of our reservoirs, ponds and lakes below 6,000 feet in elevation.
However, Sunshine lakes still harbor some ice that is breaking up along the shoreline or floating in the lakes. Wade fisherman can cast flies such as Ice Cream Cone midges, Zebra midges and small leech patterns such are a Woolly Worm or balanced leeches near the ice along shore or in open areas of water where ice is still prevalent on the lake body itself and do quite well. I often cast my flies onto the ice, then pull off to drop into the water. It usually doesn’t take long before I have a hookup on a fish.
The midge and blue-wing olive hatches are still going great guns on the lower Shoshone River below Buffalo Bill Dam. Although the hatches aren’t as heavy as a week ago, the insects are still on the surface in good enough numbers to keep the trout looking up for small dry flies or emerger patterns fished in the surface film, or just below that.
A good way to tell whether trout are eating the adult versions rather than cripples or insects rising to emerge is to watch the trout. If noses are coming up out of the water that is a good sign the trout are eating an adult version of a midge or BWO. If you observe swirls, or dorsal fins and tails, that means the trout are taking flies just below the surface.
The North and South Forks of the Shoshone and the lower Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone have blue wing olives and midges emerging, too. Even though the waters are cloudy or muddy in the main channel, trout will move to the edges of these rivers and sip or swirl on these insects. Although this isn’t as much fun as watching the trout take, it is still a great way to have dry fly action in late March. Some of the larger tributaries on the North Fork can also provide early spring dry fly opportunities. Just be careful wading and keep one eye on the lookout for grizzly bears that are also trying to find drowned elk, deer, moose and fish carcasses that were under ice not too many days ago.
“Streamside” will not run this coming April 4 in the Cody Enterprise. I will be making a pilgrimage to Pyramid Lake located not far from Reno, Nev. This lake has some huge Lahontan cutthroat trout swimming in it.
Late March and early April provides some great fishing from shore on this lake that once covered vast portions of western Nevada, eastern California and southern Oregon 12,000 years ago. The Lahontan cutthroat once grew to very large sizes – up to 40 pounds or larger.
Last October, I managed to put several 10 pound trout in my net. Next week, I hope to hook and land one of the larger but more rare, 20 pounders in the net. Thankfully, the Lahontan cutthroat like dry flies just like their Yellowstone Lake and river cousins. Wish me luck.
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