Fly Fishing in Yellowstone National Park

Trout On The Fly, LLC offers a wide range of guided fly fishing adventures to suit your needs and make your vacation an experience to last a lifetime.

We understand that everyone has different needs and wants for their fishing vacation. Here at TOTF, we tailor each trip to meet those requests. There is no detail too large or too small that is overlooked.

Trout On The Fly only work with the most dedicated guides in Montana who are safe, knowledgeable, professional and enjoyable. From the Madison River to the Bighorn River and every river, stream, or lake in between, let us lead you to the fish.
Water we Fish – Madison, Missouri, Yellowstone, Gallatin, Jefferson, Ruby, Big Horn, Yellowstone National Park, Gibbon, Firehole, Holter Lake, Hebgen Lake

Join Wilderness Pack Trips, licensed Outfitters, Mike and Erin Thompson for horseback riding, camping, fly fishing and tours of Yellowstone National Park. With over 25 years of providing horseback riding, camping and fly fishing tours in Yellowstone’s Backcountry, combined with riding over 20,000 miles of trails in Yellowstone National Park, we are sure to provide you with a great adventure.

Whether it be a family horseback tour for the day or an extended camping pack trip, our Yellowstone activities include; fly fishing day trips, horseback tours riding through herds of buffalo and grand Yellowstone adventures with backcountry camping, fly fishing and horseback riding all within Yellowstone National Park.

Slough Creek is one of the most popular fishing areas in Yellowstone Park. The access is relatively easy and the cutthroat fishing is some of the best in the world.

The lower meadows of Slough Creek, below the campground, are easily accessible from parking areas between the campground and the Cooke City road. There are rainbow trout in this lower water as well as Yellowstone cutthroat trout. The upper meadows of Slough are accessed from a trailhead near the campground. The first meadow is a 45-minute walk from the trailhead. The first meadow is the most popular since it is nearby and the fishing is excellent. Slough Creek’s second meadow is about a three-hour hike. Cutthroat trout in Slough offer good dry fly fishing with heavy hatches of caddis, pale morning duns, and large Green Drakes in July. Terrestrials are prominent in late summer. In the summer of 2007 an angler reported the first rainbow trout to be caught upstream of the Slough Creek falls. The introduction of rainbow trout may affect both the native cutthroat trout as well as other wildlife species who count on the cutthroat as a food source. The National Park Service requires anglers to kill any rainbow or other non-native trout caught in the river upstream from the campground, and recommend, but do not require, killing them below the campground. Before 2017 all fish with red throat slashes were considered native, with the rule “if it has a red slash put it back.” in 2017 this changed to requiring, above the campground, and recommending, below the campground, that “identifiable cutthroat/rainbow hybrids” be killed, with the caveat that “if you don’t know, let it go.

Good To Know

Native Trout Conservation Area

Catch and release all native fish.
No possession limit on nonnative fish.

To preserve native cutthroat trout in the Lamar River drainage— including Slough Creek and Soda Butte Creek—all nonnative fish, including rainbow trout, brook trout, and identifiable cutthroat/rainbow hybrids must be killed in these areas:

Lamar River drainage, including all tributaries and lakes, upstream from the Lamar River Bridge.
Slough Creek drainage, including all tributaries and lakes, upstream from the campground.

In areas downstream of these locations, killing of nonnative fish is recommended, but not required. If you don’t know, let it go.

Soda Butte Creek is an approximately 20 miles (32 km) long major tributary of the Lamar River in Yellowstone National Park. It is named for a now-extinct geyser (Soda Butte) near its mouth. Soda Butte and the creek were named by A. Bart Henderson, a Cooke City miner, in 1870. It rises just outside the northeast corner of the park on the southern slopes of the Absaroka Range near Cooke City, Montana. The Northeast East Entrance road parallels Soda Butte Creek for its entire length within the park. Soda Butte Creek is a popular angling destination for native Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

Soda Butte Creek is a popular destination for fly fisherman. It holds brook trout in it upper reaches, mostly cutthroat trout and a few rainbow trout in its lower section. Because of spring runoff, the creek is generally not fishable until mid-July. All rainbow and brook trout caught must be killed.