Madison River
Dam: 890 cfs
Kirby: 959 cfs
Varney: 1,080 cfs
If you don’t mind playing around in the snow, The Upper Madison is fishing well with nymphs and streamers. Nymph anglers will do best with a variety of baetis nymphs and midge larva/pupa, as well as with black rubber legs, but you could have a BWO emergence any time between 11:00 and 2:00 so be sure to have some dries packed along with you if you plan on heading up this way. Streamer fishing has been good up high, but make sure to slow down your retrieves a little bit in the morning, as colder water temps tend to make the browns a little more sluggish. Black, olive, and brown/yellow seem to be the best color during periods of low light, and we’ve been doing well on olive/white, white, and yellow when the sun is high. We are starting to see a bunch of good browns staging up around Raynolds these days, and the same could be said for the Madison between the lakes and the Madison in Yellowstone Park. Long story short…this is the best time of year to go hunting for a Toad, and it was really cool to see a recent “graduate” of our streamer school go out the next day and crack a 25″ brown using a new set of skills. Great job Tim!
