Dwindling Hatches

February 20, 2025

As a young angler who enjoys matching the hatch to fool trout, I have traveled to fish the West’s most famous insect hatches. This includes the pale morning dun hatch on the Missouri River, the salmonfly hatch on the South Fork of the Snake, caddis on the Madison River, callibaetis on Hebgen Lake, and everything in between.

I remember my first time fishing the famous Green Drake hatch on the Henry’s Fork in Idaho. It was a summer when I opted out of a summer internship to travel and fish the West, practically living out of my truck. Never had I ever experienced anything like the green drake hatch. Big brown trout rising to these enormous mayflies in shallow water. It was a fly fishing dream that I didn’t want to wake up from. I couldn’t believe the amount of bugs on the water, including PMDs, caddis, green drakes, flavs and golden stones. Even with my average skill level, it was one of the best weeks of fishing I have ever experienced.

Since then, I have continued to chase hatches throughout the region and learn more about the many insects meaningful to fly fishermen. I am still in this process, and as we all are, continuously learning a little more each year. By no means am I anything close to an expert or consider myself knowledgeable on the subject of hatches.

As I connect with and learn from other anglers along my journey, insect hatches and how they have diminished over the years have been a hot topic. Many observations from experienced and long-time anglers propose the hatches are nothing like they used to be. They are calling it the “Bug Apocolypse.” See the video by Patagonia below as an example.

My initial thought to these comments was disbelief. I couldn’t believe the hatches could have been better than I had experienced in my seven years fishing the region. The dry fly fishing seems to be some of the best in the world, as I have had many incredible days fishing for rising trout. And did you see all those bugs on the Henry’s Fork? No way are the hatches dwindling.

That being said, after further conversations with experienced anglers and a little research of my own, my disbelief has turned into concern. It seems as if the science on the subject shows that hatches may be less abundant than they used to be, specifically our stoneflies, caddis, and mayflies.

For me, this is alarming. As I weigh the potential impacts on the natural world and my fishing journey, the doubts circle through my head. Dwindling insect hatches add to the already threatened fish populations, fight for public water, widespread drought, and the many issues the fishing community is contending with.

As I said before, I am not an expert on insect hatches and how they have changed over the years. I do my best to stay educated on the subjects I write about on this blog, but I also write about things I want to learn more about. What prompted me to write this article is my concern for our region’s fisheries and a presentation I attended that The Salmonfly Project delivered on the issue.

The Salmonfly Project is one of the only organizations researching, monitoring, and working to prevent the future decline of insect populations in our famed rivers. After hearing from and meeting both Jackson and James about their work, I couldn’t help but feel inspired by their passion for this issue. They are on the ground all year, surveying the insect populations in rivers, looking to understand how they have changed over time. This information can then be given to other organizations that can implement changes to help the insect populations in our rivers.

I encourage you to visit their website and learn more about their fantastic work on the region’s rivers and beyond. I have linked it here.

So my mind has been changed once again as I learn and grow as a person and angler. Not knowing what our rivers used to be like, I can only imagine how incredible the hatches in the Yellowstone region used to be.

I hope this article spreads awareness to the few of you who read my blog posts. We all care about our rivers and the life that calls them home. We hope these environments remain healthy so future generations can experience them like we do today. And while it may be far-fetched, if we can do something today to help make this possible, I believe it is worth doing.

I encourage you to educate yourself on issues you care about and consider giving some money or time to the organizations working on the problems. We each have a role and responsibility in preserving the rivers we call our home water.

Lastly, after learning about our dwindling hatches, my most eye-opening realization is to be grateful and present each day I experience a hatch and cast to rising trout. We still have some of the finest trout fishing in the world with incredible hatches. I think it is important to respect the gloomy news about our fisheries and do what you can to make them a better place, but equally important to not let it take away from the fantastic fishing opportunities we have today.

If you want to learn more, I have linked a few more resources below.

Stay Curious,
Nick