Drew and George Gilligan with a nice Yellowstone Brown Trout!
By: Blue Ribbon Flies Newsletter

As you can see our newsletter has a little different look this week. We've been some what forced to upgraded the newsletter to help better fit all of the mobile devices and such. The past 2 or 3 weeks many of you have probably noticed some glitches in our weekly publication and this upgrade should help to fix those problems. We'll try to keep the same layout as the past newsletters but there will be a learning curve for us and a few changes. So bare with us, as we are indeed fisherman and not computer science majors. With the glitches we have been experiencing the link to the Convervation Hawks did not work last week so here it is again.


Conservation Hawks

After 10 days of winter-like weather it looks like spring has returned here in Yellowstone country. I just returned from fishing and chasing spring turkeys in eastern Montana and South Dakota. I had incredible fishing in, at times, blizzard conditions and the same with turkey hunting.

March Brown and Spring Baetis mayflies came off in good numbers during afternoon snow-squalls and big trout rose to them. When the wind laid midges emerged and brought up good browns and rainbows and I had banner afternoons.

This weekend Jackie and I head to Michigan to see family returning home mid-week just in time for late week fishing on the Madison, Yellowstone and Gallatin Rivers. Our season ending snowpack looks great for these rivers with 96-105% totals reported so we should have good water for the summer season.

BRF welcomed its newest employee, Doug Smith, to work this week. Doug comes to us from his home state of Tennessee. Stop in and welcome Doug to town, you cannot miss his smile and will enjoy his knowledge and helpfulness! The shop is looking great as new products arrive daily. Most of our local fly tiers have delivered their spring and summer orders so our fly bins are filling nicely although you all know how quickly or specialty patterns will sell out. The Montana general fishing season opens in 3 weeks and Yellowstone's season opener is just 4 weeks away. Now is the time to get ready for the upcoming season that promises to be a fine one with our good snowpack. I can't believe we will be on the Firehole in less than 30 days!

As usual in the rest of this issue, you'll find fishing news from Yellowstone Country in the weekly Fishing Report. You can see what's hot off the vise in the Fly of the Week, get a sneak peek at some of the best materials on our tying bench in the Fly Tying Material of the Week, and stay up to date with the guide staff and their trips in the Guide Trip of the Week.

You'll be seeing a new email newsletter most every week throughout the spring and summer to keep you tuned in to all things fly fishing and fly tying in the greater Yellowstone area and beyond. Throughout the seasons, we'll keep sending you news of hatches and fishing holes around West Yellowstone. So without further delay, go ahead and jump right into the newsletter. And as always, don't hesitate to give us a call or shoot us an email if you have any questions, or if you just want a little fish talk.