The Madison river fishing report from The Slide Inn is the most thorough and accurate report you will find on the Upper Madison River. These reports are written by people who are on the river every day and people you can trust to give you the straight scoop. If you are looking for the latest Madison river fishing report, be sure to give the shop a call and one of our staff members will bring you up to speed.
Despite the warmer temperatures, smokey skies, and below average flows, the Upper Madison continues to hold its own and the fishing is still pretty damn good out there. As is per usual during the Salmonfly hangover in mid July, we are seeing a lot more smaller fish come to the dry in addition to some very nice ones, but they are still looking up for a variety of caddis, PMDs, Sallies, and Eperous.
The Upper Madison has been fishing very well over the last week, and dry flies are finally on the menu. In all but the upper most reaches you can expect to see a large variety of caddis, PMDs, yellow sallies, a few green drakes, golden stones, and salmon flies and fish have been looking up consistently throughout the day. The river is running at below average flows for this time of year, but there is plenty of water to keep the banks full for the time being. River traffic has been pretty busy, especially in the sections where the big bugs are present, but you can always find some solitude by seeking out different water or fishing early or late.
It’s been a crazy month here in southwest Montana, with seventy degree blue bird days, cold rain and snow, and everything in between. The good news is that our last storm brought our snowpack levels up over twenty percent and we are now sitting at roughly 70% in the Madison Range. Flows out of Hebgen are still crazy low for this time of year and will continue to stay that way until the reservoir gets closer to full pool. Obviously this is less than ideal for spawning fish between the lakes, so please take that into consideration if you are in the neighborhood.
Despite the low flows out of Hebgen, the Upper Madison has continued to fish well over the last several weeks and we have been catching good numbers of fish throughout the entire stretch. If you are floating, be careful on the flats between Storey and Varney as well as below 8 Mile as there are plenty of spots out there that will take a good chunk out of your chines if you aren’t paying close attention. Flows were dropped again yesterday to just over 650 cfs out of the dam and we are unlikely to see an increase until we start to get Hebgen back into the 90 percentiles of full pool — in other words…it’s going to be awhile.
The Upper Madison has been fishing very well over the last month or so, and all the access points between Quake and Valley Garden are open for business with the exception of Ennis FAS. Flows out of Hebgen were dropped again to just under 800 cfs and we expect them to stay that way until we start to see more substantial runoff coming out of Yellowstone National Park. Hebgen lake is currently sitting at 74.5% full and the snow water equivalent of our snowpack in the Madison Range is roughly 88%, so we are all hoping for a very wet Spring in the months to come or we may be fishing at lower water levels for the majority of the Summer.
The Madison Valley continues to see unseasonably warm temperatures this Winter, with plenty of sunshine and very little snow in the mix. The good news is that there is still a lot of Winter yet to come — I’m sure many of you remember that we only had 74% snowpack on January 17th, 2019, and ended up at over 130% by the end of February so keep the faith and keep doing the snow dance. We are looking at another nice week of temperatures through the weekend, so now is actually a great time to hit the Upper Madison and get a line wet.
Aside from some chilly weather over the last 10 days, the Upper Madison continues to fish well this October and we are officially out of the deep freeze for the time being. The forecast is calling for highs in the 50’s through next Wednesday and crowds have been relatively small, so now is a great time to hit the river if you get the chance.
The Upper Madison continues to fish well through September. While the smoke has put a slight damper on the hopper fishing we are still getting good fish to come up to the big dry in the afternoons and nymphs and streamers have been working well in the morning. Water temps have been staying between 52 and 62 degrees which is about perfect for this time of year, and it looks like we have a little rain in the forecast for this weekend which should clear out the smoke for a couple of days or so.
It’s been a hot one out there over the last week, with daytime highs consistently bringing the mercury up into the low 90’s but the Upper Madison continues to fish well through it all. Luckily the forecast is calling for temperatures dropping back into the low to mid 80’s starting this week which should make for many pleasant afternoons. We saw another bump in flows out of the dam in order to help cool the river off and we are now sitting at over 1,300 cfs at the Kirby gauge and 1,700 cfs at Varney which are great levels for both wade and float fishing this time of year.
The Upper Madison has been fishing well lately, and we finally got a little bump in the flow out of Hebgen last week due to increasing daytime temperatures. Things are definitely not as consistent as what we saw during the first two weeks of July, but that usually happens as we start to transition from fishing a wide variety of aquatic insects to a smaller percentage of caddis and spinners and then into terrestrials. The best window of fishing seems to be from around 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and then again in the evening where you will still find caddis and Eperous spinners hitting the water from 7:00 p.m. until dark in the upper stretches. If you’re an early bird, dawn to 9:00 a.m. is definitely the best window for throwing streamers so there is a time slot for just about every method of fishing right now.
