A recent string of cold days and even colder nights has delayed the snow melt, and the river level has dropped almost daily for nearly a week. As a result, fishing conditions were as close to perfect as one could expect at this time of year, and the Mother's Day Caddis hatch brought scores of fish to the surface the past couple days here in Paradise Valley.

There was a point yesterday in the early afternoon, when there were so many caddis in the air that it was difficult to see anything except those masses of caddis flying upstream, much less see through them to the river and rising fish.

I probably fished a good solid 8 hours yesterday, with rising fish, and willing takers, the entire time. I took a break for a short time at dinner, then went back out for a couple hours at about 6:00 pm and literally hooked a fish on what seemed like nearly every cast or two.

If you have a chance to be in this area, I expect there will still be good fishing today, but the weather is warming up, the snow is once again melting, and the river is on the rise. With the Upper Yellowstone Watershed snowpack now reported at about 160% of normal, it will probably be close to the end of July until the river again goes down to safe fishable levels.

John