Madison River Fishing Report for 1/25/2016
Dam: 870 cfs
Kirby: 1,030 cfs
Madison River fishing report for 1-25-2016. The Madison is still fishing very well this winter with nymphs and dries, and there has been some decent streamer fishing to be had as well. We’ve been getting some much needed snow in the valley over the last week, and our snow pack is currently holding at 97% with a moisture equivalent of 93%. Hopefully we will continue to build up a good supply of runoff over the next few months, and air temperatures stay cool enough to delay any premature melts. That said, we are still getting a steady emergence of midges from late morning through the early afternoon hours, and the dry fly fishing has been good to excellent depending on the wind situation. If you are planning on driving up to the Upper Madison to throw dries, do yourself a favor and check the forecast beforehand, as it has been very difficult to find pods of fish working when all the bugs are getting ripped off the water. I wish that we had more to say about new patterns to try, but the old griffith’s gnat and kelly’s goober midge have been the only dry flies we’ve needed to throw for well over a month now. That’s not to say that other midge patterns won’t work out there, but we tend to follow the general rule of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
If simply catching as many fish as possible is more your style, then the nymph bite will not disappoint. Again, we’ve been sticking with the winter staples and haven’t found much reason to deviate from an array of of pat’s rubber legs, small hares ears and pheasant tails, $3 dips, zebra midges, and small stonefly nymphs. Find the slow water somewhere between 3 and 5 feet in depth and you will find good numbers of fish. It’s as simple as that, but make sure you have enough split shot to get down on the bottom or you could be missing out.
We have also found some good browns willing to eat a streamer later on in the day. You’ll do best by keeping your retrieves on the slower side, and we try to move it about 3-5″ per strip on a vertical jig. Some of our more productive streamers have been black and olive double screamers, sex dungeons, trevor’s sculpins, and silk kitties. If you are having trouble getting fish to chase down a larger meal, try smaller patterns like zonkers, sculpzillas, and pecs.
Be sure to keep checking back for another madison river fishing report from the slide inn.
