Gallitin River Fly Fishing Report & Options for Selecting Flies: Email us at (sales@perfectflystore.com) with the dates you will be fishing and we will send you a list of our fly recommendations. We can get flies and gear to you within two to three business days from the time you place your order via Priority Mail. If you provide a budget for flies, we will select them to match the budget and get them to you on time for your trip. Your can also call us at 800-594-4726 and we will help you decide what flies and gear to use. All orders are shipped free in the U.S. If under a $100 order requiring Priority mail is a charge of only $8.10. Orders over a $100 are shipped free via Priority Mail.
We have custom Perfect Fly selections in 3 different price ranges for this stream that come with or without fly boxes that make excellent gifts. Click Here To Order or Call us at 800 594 4726 or email us at sales@perfectflystore.com.
Type of Stream
Freestone
Species
Rainbow Trout
Cutthroat
Brown
Rocky Mountain Whitefish
(Wild Trout)
Size
Large
Location
Southwestern Montana, YNP
Nearest Towns
West Yellowstone, Montana
Season
Last of May through October
Access:
Good
Park License
Yellowstone National Park License
Weather
National Weather Service Link
Seasons:
Spring:
The Gallatin River is usually still to cold or experiencing runoff conditions at the start of the season near the first of June. It is at least mid June and often the first of July
before it becomes fishable.
Summer:
Summertime is the best time to fish the Gallatin. That is when hatches are plentiful and the water conditions are most favorable.
Fall:
Fly Fishing the Gallatin River is good during the early part of the Fall season.
Recommended Tackle & Gear
Fly Line:
5 or 6 weight
Leaders:
Dry fly: 9 & 12 ft., 5 or 6X, Nymphing:
71/2 ft., 3 or 4X, Streamers 0-2X
Tippets:
Dry fly: 5 or 6X, Nymphing: 3 or 4X,
Streamer 0-2X
Best Fly Rods:
Perfect Fly Superb Five or Ultimate Six
Fly Reels:
For 5/6 fly line
Fly Floatants and Misc Items:
Floatants, KISS Strike Indicators
Tools & Accessories:
Nippers, forceps, retractors, etc.
Fly Fishing The Gallatin River – Yellowstone National Park
The portion of the Gallatin River inside Yellowstone National Park is the picture perfect small trout stream. It is also one of the easiest to access streams in the park. Highway #191 follows the stream within a short distance its entire length in the park. It is easy to wade in most places. When you are fly fishing the Gallatin River, you are fly fishing one of, if not the best small stream in the nation.
This stream begins at a high elevation in the park as two small streams that flow into Gallatin Lake. The outflow of Gallatin Lake starts the Gallatin River. It’s one of the coldest streams in the park. It is one of the last streams in the western side of the park to warm up. There’s
approximately twenty-five miles of the stream inside the park’s boundaries.
Fan Creek, Divide Creek and Bacon Rind Creeks join it near mile post 22 on Highway #191. A few miles downstream Specimen Creek, another tributary stream, adds to the flow. Each of these streams also provide some very good small stream fishing opportunities.
For the next thirty miles of so, the Gallatin River flows through a continuous string of riffles and runs with only a few pools along its way. It has the appearance of a meadow stream since it flows through large meadows, but it isn’t the typical meandering meadow stream at all.
It’s mostly a fast water, mountain stream.
The trout are rainbows, cutthroat and cutbows in the park section although there may be some brown in the lower section. They probably only average ten to twelve inches but there are some that get much larger. In fact, we think most anglers that haven’t fished it very often and at the various times of the season underrate the size of the trout in the Gallatin River. By the way, there’s also plenty of Mountain Whitefish in the stream and some of them are huge.