The Upper Madison has been been fishing well this week, and flows out of Hebgen Dam have been cut back drastically since our last report. Water clarity is roughly 3-4 feet depending on the section of river you are fishing and we should start to see the river clear up entirely in the next week or so.
The Upper Madison is coming back into shape after the incredible amount of rain we received just over a week ago. Flows out of Hebgen peaked from June 15th through June 17th, and NorthWestern Energy has been dropping them steadily every day since then. We anticipate flows out of the dam to drop below 2,000 cfs in the next 24-36 hours, and visibility to start to improving by the weekend. In the meantime the upper wade stretch has been fishing well in the mud with nymph and streamers.
The Upper Madison has been fishing well over the last week, and we have continued to receive some much needed moisture all across the region. The river is still very fishable above Palisades but it gets a little dirty once you get between Pal and Ruby…visibility in Ennis today was under a foot and brown. We are currently sitting at 2.5′-3′ of visibility above the West Fork of the Madison, and flows out of Hebgen are still very low as Northwestern Energy continues their effort to fill the reservoir by the end of the month. Right now the lake is over 89% full and we think there is enough water still to come in order to fill it.
