You should try it some time. All of the Missouri’s sediment settles out in the reservoir, and the water is crystal clear until the Milk river dumps into it. You have to be careful about which part you’re fishing, however, as part of it is a closed spawning area.
Fly fishing anybody?
Nice photos everyone! Just beautiful. I just joined this forum a few minutes ago – this thread showed up on a google search of the black canyon of the Yellowstone. So I wanted to ask LDPayton if he would be willing to share some intel on how to best reach the black canyon area during a day hike to maximize fishing time. I will be heading up to the Northeast portion of Yellowstone Park with a couple of buddies the first week of August 2013. Thanks in advance.
Funny that you wound up finding fishing info on a music site, but I’m happy to share my knowledge of Black Canyon with you. We always accessed the canyon from the Hellroaring Creek trailhead. It makes for a good day trip. If you follow the Hellroaring trail all the way to the river, you wind up at the suspension bridge, which is pretty spectacular, but doesn’t offer any access for fishing.
[attachment=3]suspensionbridge-b.jpg[/attachment]
The trick is to break off from the trail well before the bridge and head upriver.
[attachment=2]hellroaring-trail.jpg[/attachment]
On this map the red line is the trail. As it rolls over the hill and starts the switchbacks down to the river, you’ll get several good looks upstream. At some point (I marked it with a green line) drop off the trail and into the small creek drainage to the east. It’s not too tough, some boulders and scree to work through, but easy enough. The green arrow is the spot where I took the pictures of my wife.
I found these pictures online. I don’t know who these folks are, but the pics offer a good look upstream from the trail, and that’s the direction you want to head.
[attachment=1]hellroaring-2.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]hellroaring-3.jpg[/attachment]
My fishing knowledge about Black Canyon is pretty much limited to the salmonfly hatch, since that’s the only time I was willing to make the effort to hike in. You’ll be a little late for that, but you still might want to have some Salmonfly patterns before going in. I suspect the fish would move from Salmonflies to terrestrials, like grasshoppers, by the time you get there, so I’d be slinging big flies at first. Beyond that, I’d want the usual arsenal of Yellowstone flies… elk hair caddis, etc. You probably won’t need wading gear, as the water is just too treacherous, so that should lighten your day pack a bit.
If you decide to make it into the canyon, take some pictures for us, and post 'em here.
Larry - thanks so much for sharing this information. I have fished the Hellroaring Creek before and have been on this trail – as I recall, the suspension bridge is pretty early in the hike – I eventually made it to the Hellroaring/Yellowstone confluence. I like the idea of finding a shortcut. Thanks
It’s been a few years since I’ve been there, so I don’t remember exactly how long the hike is, but you are right that the bridge isn’t too far. The river is easy to reach as a day hike and still leaves plenty of time for fishing. I believe this is one of the easiest ways to access the canyon stretches of the river. I never had the motivation to hike into any of the steeper sections. I figured the trout couldn’t get much wilder than the ones I was already fishing for. 
Larry – So until I get to Yellowstone, here a couple of recent cutties caught up in Southeastern BC. Some nice dry fly fishing up there – would be happy to share info if you are ever interested. Cheers, Bill
Pretty fish! I’ve never done any fishing in BC, though I know there are some good rivers, there.
I’ve never fly fished but this thread makes me want to start. Sadly this is the only fly rod I own.
Haha! Looks like it might be tough to practice catch-and-release with that fly rod!
Man, I have never seen a trout with that much colour. Here in BC we get a lot of rainbows and cutthroats, but never that deep of colour even spawners. I usually fish nymphs on the lake with my “guides”, aka brother in laws. They usually know the flys to use. We use a floating line with about 12’ leaders and 16# to 12# charonamids or mayfly nymphs. Just fished last week at Lac Le Jeune and we caught about 10 bows, and I kept two for the smoker. Last fall was my first coho fishing with fly and caught only one hatchery, which we are allowed to keep. This fall is supposed to be a record sockeye year.
This thread reminded me… the bass player of the band I play in is Richard Hart. Years ago he came up with a fly (the “Hart’s Ghost Minnow”) that made him kind of known. He’ll run into people in the weirdest places that know him from that fly. I just figured I’d “throw it out there” and see if any of you have heard of it. One of these days I’ll go with him and learn how to fly fish.
I’m not familiar with the Hart’s Ghost Minnow but most of my fly knowledge pertains to trout flies. It appears the Ghost Minnow is designed to primarily catch warm water fish like bass.
I’ve come up with a few of my own fly patterns (actually fly pattern variations) over the years, but no one has named one for me. 
We are planning a road trip to the northwest this Aug./Sept… Plan on some fly fishing and some picking… If anyone wants to meetup for one or both… or could give recommendations that would be great… Plan on going to Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, maybe Washington and Oregon… I think most of our time will be in Montana and Wyoming.
Nathan
That sounds like a great trip Nathan. Never been up that way. I’ll be on a big float fishing/camping trip with some picking buddies down here around that time though.
Where at in Montana?
I used to have friends out in Missoula and visited twice for 2 weeks. I did do some fishing while out there. The Clark Fork runs right through the middle of town, and you can certainly see the trout, and the suckers. They are very wary, and the setting is just all wrong anyway. The Bitteroot is outside of town. It’s a very slow moving river, and I never actually tried it so can’t say if it’s any good.
What was good, and it was very, very good, is Rock Creek. I can’t remember how far out of town it was, and it’s been 15 years since I’ve been out there. But it was Blue Ribbon water. I caught a bunch of large brown trout. I’m a terrible fly fisherman but the fish didn’t seem to mind and the setting was great. The higher upstream you go, you start losing the browns and rainbows and it turns to strictly Cutthroats. And of course anybody can catch those, they’re not too bright. But that’s lots of fun too.
It’s a long sad story on why I say ‘used to have friends’ out there. Cancer took one far too young at only 38, and her husband eventually remarried and moved out of State. I’ve lost touch with him completely.
We also travelled up to Glacier NP, and that was awesome. Not so much for the fishing, although there were plenty of small cutthroats to be had in McDonald Creek on the West side, but the scenery was outstanding, all the way up past the Mission Mountains, past gigantic Flathead Lake, and into the Park area.
Turns out that Larry knows Rock Creek too! (See page 1). You should pick his brain, I’m most definitely a hack when it comes to fishing.
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What was good, and it was very, very good, is Rock Creek. I can’t remember how far out of town it was …
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About 30 minutes from MIssoula max. Easy drive down I90 and the road back to the creek is smooth gravel.
We are still in the planning process… Unfortunately my father in law is not in the best health, so our plans are still very ‘fluid’… Big Sky is one of the areas that we were looking at though…