Madison River
Dam: 804 cfs
Kirby: 903 cfs
Varney: 1,000 cfs
The Upper Madison continues to fish well with nymphs, but the dry fly bite is still a little too inconsistent to really excited about– We have been taking some nice fish on hoppers and ants in the wade section, but there are a lot more lookers than takers on the hopper front. While we are still seeing good fish eating nocturnal stones below Lyon’s Bridge, the action has started to slow down a bit more over the last few days and my guess is that most of them will be done for the year by next week. On the subsurface side of things, midges, baetis nymphs (in the a.m.), Serendipities, lightning bugs, and caddis pupa in addition to the usual fare of zonkers and other small streamers have been the way to go this week. With the exception of this morning, streamer fishing has slowed down considerably in the float section–We’re not quite sure what happened, but the zonker/beadhead set up has definitely been the better choice for putting numbers of fish in the boat rather than ripping big stuff off the banks. However, we have had some great days with dungeons, boogie men, and other food based imitations when the clouds roll in. Long story short, pray for rain if you are looking to throw junk, and think twice about it when the sun is out in full force.
