Madison River
Dam: 900 cfs
Kirby: 994 cfs
With the deep freeze relinquishing its grasp on the Greater Yellowstone Region over the last few days, it has been downright pleasant to be on the Upper Madison this week. The nymph fishing between Quake and Lyon’s Bridge has continued to offer up the most consistent action, and midges are definitely the way to go. While larger patterns such as Pat’s Rubber Legs, San Juan Worms, and Zonkers are always a good option, we seem to be doing best on black zebra midges, #18 $3 Dips, and other various midge imitations. There has been some surface activity as well, but it’s still not full-blown quite yet….give it a few weeks and we should really start to see it go crazy out there. Streamer fishing is still well worth your time, so keep your retrieves slow and pay attention to the slow edges, tail-outs, and deep buckets and you should do fine. We are still getting fish to eat larger patterns such as Peanut Envys and Sex Dungeons, but smaller flies such as Wooly Sculpins, Mike’s Pecs, CH Barely Legals, and various buggers can be more productive on the colder mornings. The extended forecast is calling for temps in the high 30’s to low 40’s for the next seven days, so now would be a great time to grab your gear and head on over to Upper Madison before Old Man Winter shows himself again.
