Lamar River
The Lamar River is a tributary of the Yellowstone River, approximately long, in northwestern Wyoming in the United States. The river is located entirely within Yellowstone National Park.
History
Prior to the 1884–85 Geological Survey of the park, the Lamar was known as the East Fork of the Yellowstone River. During that survey, Geologist Arnold Hague named the river for L.Q.C. Lamar, then Secretary of the Interior, and a former slaveholder and author of the Mississippi Ordinance of Secession. The Lamar Valley, or the Secluded Valley of Trapper Osborne Russell and other park features or administrative names which contain Lamar are derived from this original naming.Osborne Russell in his 1921 Journal of a Trapper described the Lamar as follows:
In 1869, the Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition encountered the Lamar River just upstream from the canyon section flowing into the Yellowstone and traveled upstream to the confluence of Calfee Creek where they camped on September 16, 1869.
Location and tributaries
It rises in the Absaroka Range, on the eastern edge of the park, and flows northwest through the northeast corner of the park. It is joined by many tributary streams, including Soda Butte Creek and Slough Creek and joins the Yellowstone near Tower Junction, below the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The river flows through a portion of the park hit hard by the 1988 wildfires.Angling
The Lamar River, with its tributaries is a popular destination for fly fishing in Yellowstone Park. The access is very easy and the cutthroat fishing is some of the best in the world. There are some rainbow trout in the river below the road bridge, but the primary fishing throughout the drainage is for Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Cutthroat trout in the Lamar 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.The Lamar and its tributaries are not usually fishable until about the second week of July, because of high water.
The National Park Service has made frequent changes to the regulations for the Lamar and for its tributaries including Slough Creek and Soda Butte, and in 2018 has made significant new changes. Anglers are now required to kill all non-native fish, including rainbow trout, brook trout, and identifiable rainbow/cutthroat hybrids throughout the Lamar drainage. On page 14 of the 2018 regulations they still say that if it has a red slash put it back, but that is clearly superseded by the region specific requirement that if a fish landed in the Lamar drainage is clearly identifiable as a hybrid then it must be killed, even if it has a red slash, with the caveat that "if you don't know, let it go." Another significant change to the Park-wide fishing regulations is that felt soles are no longer permitted on waders. Other Park-wide regulations, that continue from previous years, are that barbed hooks, lead weights, lead split shot, and live bait are banned.