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June.. ..A great month for scenery and fishing!

Secrets the locals like to keep to themselves.

For many of us here at Blue Ribbon, June is by far one of our most favorite months to fish. Adjusting to conditions handed to us in this month is the key to success. What ever the conditions bring you can be assured that June, has and will bring lots of options for any angler whether or not we have high or low water. This year, currently we are sitting right at 100% of normal snow pack and this number should bring with it, excellent fishing. Here's an outlook from our guides at just a few of many rivers that will fish well in June along with the flies to use and a few tips on how to fish them.

Firehole River: June is the BEST month to fish the Firehole River. An extremely unique trout stream that is lined with geysers, hot pots, and teeming with wildlife, the Firehole offers tremendous dry fly fishing. In early June, the Firehole is usually just seeing the end of runoff and should be clearing more and more by the day. As with all fishing in Yellowstone country, at all times of the year, you need to base when and where each day on the weather. For example a cloudy, rainy day is ideal for Baetis and PMD's to emerge in the afternoon hours on the Firehole. Sections like Muleshoe Bend, biscuit basin, and Fountain flats will have hundreds of fish slurping in adult mayflies. A warm sunny day will have great fishing opportunities in the mid morning with egg laying caddis, and PMD spinners. The firehole picnic area, goose lake meadows, and Mallard Creek are good places for this activity. But as you see regardless of the weather there is almost always something happening on the Firehole in June. A last note: because of the caddis activity, swinging soft hackle imitations is always a great producing technique and we will include several of these imitations in the selection.

Madison in the park: June is also the month to fish this river, As with the Firehole Hydropsyche caddis in the evening as well as PMD spinners. A cloudy nasty day will have afternoon emergences of PMD's and Baetis. Nymphing with large stonefly imitations with a small beadhead trailer can be very effective in all the broken water sections; such as 9-mile hole, barns holes, and 11-mile hole. Generally within the first two weeks of June you can count on Salmon Flies showing up and it doesn't take too many of these bugs to get the fish looking up.

Hebgen Lake: great midge fishing every calm evening and morning. Again a float tube is needed to maximize your fishing chances but worth it. Try the water on the North shore, such as Rumbaugh Bay, cherry creek and the South Fork arm. Great dry fly fishing as big trout go in search of emerging midges!

Madison River below Quake Lake: more than likely the river will be somewhat off colored from run-off, in the early part of June but if you can look past the stained water there is tremendous fishing potential to be had. Some of the largest fish caught on the Madison are at this time of year. Because of the higher, more turbid water, the fish migrate into shore to look for sculpins and stonefly nymphs being scoured up from the bottom dwelling homes. So it's no secret as to where the big guys are! Try streamers dead drifted in all the pockets right along the shoreline. Great fishing with very few people. The later part of June will see the river start to clear and it's at this time where we find those large Browns and Rainbows starting to come to the surface.

So if your looking for some great fishing you may want to consider the month of June, you won't be sorry.