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Home » 04/17/24 Fly Fishing Report for Yellowstone National Park – Knowing How These Variables Affect Your Fishing

04/17/24 Fly Fishing Report for Yellowstone National Park – Knowing How These Variables Affect Your Fishing

Lighting Conditions: Bright skies and/or cloudy Skies affect your fishing as much as anything. Low lighting conditions and bright lighting conditions affect the way trout can see your fly. In bright light conditions, trout, especially the brown trout, tend to stay deeper and/or under the cover of vegetation, undercut banks. Low light conditions exist either at dawn or dusk or hen there’s heavy cloud cover. Bright lighting conditions exist when the sun is high above the horizon and the sky is clear. Both conditions affect how well the trout can see your fly. You want the trout to see the fly, but not well enough that it can determine the fly is not an insect or other food the fish survive on. The best tip I can give you is for you to fish very late in the day. Insect activity such as spinner falls and egg laying activity occurs mostly during the late afternoons. Fish when other anglers are hitting the bars in the afternoons and you will see a big difference in the number of fish caught.

Water Clarity: Much like the amount of sunlight affects your fishing, the clarity of the water is a big factor in how well trout can see your fly. Again, my tip is that you want the trout to see the fly, but just well enough to determine is isn’t the real thing. Of course, that is a big selling point of our Perfect Flies versus the generic patterns. Our Perfect Flies look very much like the real things. They will definitely increase the odds of your success.

Water Temperature: Water temperature is the largest and most important single variable that affects your fishing. It affects the activity of both the trout and the insects the trout rely on for food. Water temperature is arguably the single most important variable that impacts trout behavior. It can determine how much and how often the trout will eat. Because the water temperature affects the amount of oxygen in the water, is a big factor in the feeding activity of the fish. Fish are cold blooded and and their body temperature is directly affected by the water temperature. Warm water temperatures increase the metabolism of the trout . Because trout are cold blooded, their body temperature is directly related to the water temperature. Higher water temperatures are good up to the point it begins to reduce the amount of oxygen in the water. Water temperatures in the high sixties, are about the upper limit that the warmer water affects the feeding activity of the trout. Have a thermometer with you and measure the water temperature in situations where the water is very cold or very warm. Water below 45 degrees F., can limit the amount of feeding activity. If the water temperature is above 67 degrees F., fish streams with a lower water temperature and stronger currents.

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