Richard Parks instructing a beginner fly angler.
Montana and Yellowstone Fly Fishing Trips for Beginners
The Yellowstone area is a great place to learn how to fly fish. Parks' Fly Shop has been teaching beginners how to fly fish since 1954, and roughly a quarter of our clients are beginners, and all of our guides teach dozens of first-timers every year. While we can take beginners on any of our trips that are available (not all trips are available all-year), we suggest one trip more than all others for total beginners: Our Beginner Brookies trips into Yellowstone Park.
Back in the 1800s, most small creeks in the northern part of Yellowstone were fishless. Being "brooks," fisheries managers stocked them with brook trout native to the eastern United States. Out here, these fish overpopulate and get stunted, but there are TONS of them.
To take advantage of these fisheries, we've developed a beginner specialty half-day trip we've taken to calling our "Beginner Brookie" trip. Beginner Brookie trips are half-day public water walk-wade trips. They all involve hikes in the 1-2 mile range each way to access unpressured water and easy fishing, usually traversing gentle terrain with good footing, though if you are up for a more aggressive hike, even more fisheries and some lovely waterfall viewing become possible. These hikes give us access to a wide range of small waters where the fishing is easy, the casts are short, and the wildflowers are pretty.
What Will You Learn?
We'll always cover the following basics, in addition to (probably!) catching some fish:
- The elements of tackle: rod, reel, line, leader, and tippet
- Rigging and the basics of caring for fly tackle
- Introduction to fly fishing knots
- Line and rod handling basics
- The standard overhead cast
- Basics of reading water: where fish are likely to live and why
- Basics of approaching the water: how to sneak up on fish, where to stand, and how to wade to avoid spooking your quarry
- Drift management basics: making your flies behave like real insects
- Recognizing the signs of a fish striking, often both with dry (surface) flies and with subsurface flies.
- Setting the hook and playing fish
- Basics of unhooking and releasing fish without doing additional harm
- Extreme basics of aquatic insect entomology and fly selection based on conditions and season
Depending on how quickly members in the party pick up the above, we may also cover the following:
- Line mending and other more advanced elements of drift management
- More in-depth discussion of aquatic insect entomology, some discussion of baitfish behavior
- Tactics to retrieve snagged flies
- Introduction to roll casting (an additional cast) and possibly other advanced casts
- Safe wading basics
- Reviving exhausted fish before release
Young angler and typical brook trout.
What's Included?
As is the case with all of our guided trips, we include the guide service, water, lunch on full-day trips, flies, rod/reel combos (if you don't have your own yet), leaders and other terminal tackle, and wading gear appropriate to the season and weather: waders and wading boots when it is cold/wet, or just wading boots if it is warm. In general, you should plan to wear clothes you don't mind getting wet such as long-sleeve hiking/outdoor pants, long-sleeve tee shirts, and so on, since it is much easier to hike without wearing waders and because warm temperatures are common when most beginners go fishing, making getting a little wet feel good. We do not include any personal attire (including hats, raincoats, and polarized sunglasses, all of which are required), Yellowstone Park entrance fees, fishing licenses, or guide gratuity.
How Much Does it Cost?
Rates, policies, and so on are described on this page. Rates for trips with beginners are identical to trips with experienced anglers.
