Yellowstone Lake

Overview

Yellowstone Lake sits at 7,733 feet inside Yellowstone National Park and is the largest lake above 7,000 feet in North America, about 20 miles long and 14 miles wide with 141 miles of shoreline and a surface of 132 square miles. Its only outlet is the Yellowstone River at Fishing Bridge. It freezes every winter, thaws in late May or early June, and averages 41 degrees year-round. The lake holds the largest population of wild cutthroat trout in North America, and the story of the last thirty years is the fight to keep it that way. Lake trout, illegally introduced, were first detected in 1994 and drove Yellowstone cutthroat into a steep decline through the early 2000s. The National Park Service answered with the largest nonnative fish suppression program anywhere: gillnetting crews removed 264,650 lake trout in 2024 alone and more than 4.9 million over 28 years, and adult lake trout have been cut by an estimated 92 percent from their 2012 level. Cutthroat are recovering, still below target but far above their low. Every angler is part of this program. All lake trout you catch must be killed, and every native fish must be released. The cutthroat fishing is best right after the opener, when fish hold along the beaches and shoals near West Thumb, Gull Point and the tributary mouths and eat stripped Woolly Buggers, Clousers and balanced leeches under an indicator. Callibaetis bring them to the surface in midsummer. Rainbow trout are not present here.