[ARCHIVE] Stillwater River Report – 05/06/19

Flows dropped, stabilized and regained clarity and unless there are heavy rains, the river should stay in good shape at least until the weekend. The overcast weather days are perfect conditions for BWOs to come off by late morning. Try a smaller size Purple Haze, Parachute Adams, BWO or Smoke Jumper pattern if fishing to rising fish. March Browns are coming off as well. Dry fly action is more active with cloud cover. If it’s bright and sunny, try fishing with a dropper nymph. A March Brown nymph dropped off of a Purple Haze or Parachute Adams will produce. Various baetis and caddis emergers trailed slightly below the surface should also take fish this time of year as well. The number one dry fly pattern for the March Brown hatch is the Trina’s Carnage Drake March Brown in size 14. A good dry fly tactic is to fish a tandem rig using a larger spotter dry fly along with a smaller dry fly trailer pattern. Otherwise, nymphing is always a good bet with standard Stillwater beadhead mayfly nymph patterns like a hare’s ear, pheasant tail, caddis green psycho prince, or red copper john. A beadhead prince nymph is always a good choice too. For streamers, darker color patterns like black buggers or the Grinch are good choices. While the water may be too cold to get the full-blown hatch going, there have been a few caddis appearing. Fish should be active on the caddis nymphs. This is likely the last window to fish the Stillwater before runoff sets in.