Having grown up and learned to fly fish in Michigan, the only stone flies I dealt with were the small black variety. I was never all that excited about them, though I did have success fishing the stone fly nymphs for steel head. Now that I live in Montana, I have a whole new outlook on stone flies. They are fascinating, huge, and very exciting to fish. On my last trip down to Yellowstone Park, I lucked into fishing not only a very large Golden Stone fly hatch, but also the Yellowstone Rivers Salmon fly hatch. Though I did not catch any huge trout, it sure was fun watching that giant fly drift down stream, anticipating a massive snout about to crush it at any second. I did catch some smaller trout though, including a 14″ brown, and a 12″ brookie, that was even brighter then my paintings of them!