River Flows
Hebgen Dam: 699 cfs
Kirby: 842 cfs
Varney: 1100 cfs
Fishing on the Upper Madison has been pretty decent over the last several weeks, but it’s been a windy one out there. When Aeolus decides to descend upon the valley most people have been staying up high or have tried to find some shelter in the trees below Varney, as the middle part of the river is not for the faint of heart when it starts to blow 30-40 mph at low flows. Aside from the wind, we have been getting some much needed moisture around here and as of today Hebgen is 99.6% full and rising. What does that mean? It means we are finally going to see some water headed our way. You can expect to see flows increasing 5% every hour from noon until 5 pm today and they will probably keep going tomorrow through Friday until they match the inflow. This will certainly push the salmon fly hatch back a little more, and you can count on the streamer fishing getting a lot better over the next week.
While the dry fly fishing has started to get improve with small attractors and adult caddis, nymphs are the most productive method for catching fish by a long shot. In the upper stretches we’ve been doing best with small pat’s rubber legs and TJ Hookers in #10-12, Olive Caddis Larva, Zebra Midges, Dips, and Smaller Perdigons in the 16-18 range — BWOs nymphs are still in play on the colder days, but its been a caddis and small stonefly game for the most part. The same could be said for most of the float section, but we have had some really fun days dropping tungsten off of Royal Micro Chubbies as well.
Streamer fishing still isn’t great, but expect that to change here very shortly as flows out of the dam tick a little higher with each passing day. Mini Envys, Mini Whiteys, Double Screamers, Mini Loop Sculpin, Bangtails, and micro envys have been some of the better patterns for us lately in Black, Olive, Yellow, Olive/Black, and Natural. Retrieve style has also been really important…some days they want the slow twitch or jig and on others you can’t get them to move unless you’re ripping it back to the boat, so keep playing with color and retrieve style until you crack the code.
And yes…there have been a few salmonflies spotted down low, but we are still a little ways off from a full blown emergence. Our best guess is somewhere around June 16th which is still a week earlier than normal, but you never know with those bugs and it doesn’t take long for the word to get out once they start crawling. Feel free to call the North Slide down in Ennis for any and all big bug inquiries next week and we’ll give you the lowdown. Thanks for reading another Madison River fishing report from the Slide Inn.
