Madison River Fishing Report for June 15th, 2016
Dam: 598 cfs
Hebgen: 1,020 cfs
Varney: 1,800 cfs
Madison River fishing report. The Upper Madison has really been coming into shape over the last week, and we are currently sitting at 20″-24″ of visibility in the wade section below Quake Lake. Water levels have been dropping steadily throughout the upper river, with the creeks putting in less water by the day and of considerably clearer quality than what we saw just five days ago. Beaver Creek has gone from chocolate milk to green, and the West Fork of the Madison has followed suit , so the visibility in the float section has improved dramatically all the way down to town. That said, the nymph and streamer fishing in the upper 12 miles continues to impress each and every day and we are still doing best on a variety of smaller nymphs such as olive and green caddis larva, $3 dips, lighting bugs, yellow sallies, BWO nymphs and emergers, hare’s ears, and small princes. We have gotten a few to eat the rubber leg up here, but they seem to be keyed in on the bigger stuff a little more from Lyon’s Bridge down to Ennis for the time being. There have been some baetis hatching on the cooler days, but we should start to see more in the way of caddis popping as water temps continue to rise over the next week. However, there is a ton of insect activity going on between Palisades and Ennis right now including good numbers of tan and olive caddis, great gray spotted sedges (chocolate caddis), and yes…even a few salmon flies. The hatch is still anywhere from 3-6 days from really getting going, but there have been a few adults spotted around town and the banks are crawling with nymphs ready to pop. We’ll keep you updated on the progress of the hatch in the days to come, but for now I would concentrate on dialing in your rubber leg color down there and drop a good assortment of sally nymphs, caddis larva and caddis pupa off the back. There have already been some decent fish caught on dries, but it the real action will start once we start seeing flights…any day now.
Streamer fishing has also turned on in a big way throughout the Upper Madison, particularly in the float stretch. We are still finding most of the bigger browns tight to the bank, and they have been eating big, articulated patterns on a fast strip as of late. Some of our better patterns this week have been olive and black boogie men, olive/white barely legals, sex dungeons, and double screamers, but we have also had some good luck dead drifting zonkers and trevor sculpins as well. Remember to keep changing up your retrieves and color variations until you crack the code, and you should do well out there. As always, be sure to keep checking back for another Madison River fishing report from the Slide Inn.