Madison River
Dam: 1,620 cfs
Kirby: 1,990 cfs
Varney: 2,640 cfs
The flow out of Hebgen Dam has gone up almost 400 cfs over the last week, and we are currently holding at just under 2,000 cfs above the West Fork. While this may wash out a little more holding water than we had a few days ago, when you do find soft water…there will usually be a pile of fish lying beneath it. We haven’t been getting many reports from anglers due to the fact that there’s hardly anyone over here right now, but the streamer crowd had great fishing yesterday and that is always a good sign. We had a guide trip go out two days ago as well, and the fishing was excellent throughout the wade section. The top producers were pat’s rubberlegs in black and tan/brown, Hydropsyche caddis larva, baetis nymphs and emergers, and $3 dips, but there was very little action on san juans. That could change today, as the higher flows should flush out a lot of worms from the already water-logged banks. We have continued to see baetis pop during the cloudy afternoons, and little sparkle duns and other BWO patterns have been good when fish have been looking up (just got to be in the right place at the right time). Visibility has improved to around 4 feet in the wade section, but with Cabin and Beaver pumping more mud into Quake we might be back to 2-3 feet by next week. Either way, we’ll keep you updated in the days to come.
