Madison River Fishing Report for May 5th, 2021
Dam: 655 cfs
Kirby: 886 cfs
Varney: 983 cfs
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.
Nymphing continues to be the most consistent way of getting into fish, and we are still doing well on a vartiety of Pat’s Rubber Legs, Perdigons, BWO nymphs, Zebra Midges, Olive and Green Caddis Larva and San Juan Worms. With the warmer weather over the last week we have started to see more caddis starting to hatch down by Ennis and on the lower Madison below Ennis Lake. On the cloudier days, you can see March Browns hatching with some consistency and while we don’t see many of them in the wade stretch you can get into some amazing dry fly fishing on these larger mayfly duns in the areas downstream from Storey Ditch if the conditions are right.
Streamer fishing has been pretty good as well. I don’t think we’ve had an all-day window quite yet but that’s pretty normal for Spring fishing. If you can get clouds and temps above freezing in the morning, get out there as soon as you can. Some of our better windows over the last 2-3 weeks have been from 7 a.m. until the sun starts to pop out. On the colder mornings however, you will do best by sticking to the early afternoon to evening hours especially on clear nights. Black and olive patterns like Boogie Men, Peanut Envys, and Double Screamers have been some of our better producers in the clouds and brighter colors like white, natural, olive/white, and sparkle minnows have got some attention once the sun pops out.
As always, please watch your step out there if you are wade fishing on the Upper Madison. There are quite a few spawning beds out there right now, so please remember to walk in front of the redd rather than behind it, as most of the eggs end up 3′-10′ behind the cleared gravel.
