Madison River Fishing Report for June 23rd, 2023
Dam: 465 cfs
Kirby: 853 cfs
Varney: 1,570 cfs
The Upper Madison has been fishing well, but it has definitely been a little slower out there over the last three to four days. If you are looking for the most consistent fishing, I would stay in the wade stretch between Quake and Lyon’s, as the float section has been a lot more inconsistent. That should change here shortly, once flows out of Hebgen start to increase and we get more clean water entering Quake. Right now we about still hovering between 2′-3′ of visibility above the West Fork and a little less down by Ennis.
Nymphs and streamers are still the name of the game, but it won’t be long before our dry fly season is in full swing. As far as productive nymph patterns are concerned we are still doing best on smaller patterns such as Caddis Larva, BWO nymphs, Perdigons, Zebra Midges, and Sally nymphs in the upper stretches and the worm bite has picked up on the rainy days as well. We are getting some fish to eat the rubber leg, but not nearly as consistent as the smaller stuff. If you head into the float section below Lyons you’ll want to have something big in front of your smaller droppers to get some attention so rubber legs and worm patterns are a must unless you plan on pulling over an isolating specific holes.
Fishing streamers tight against the banks has provided some of the most consistent fishing for us lately. Dungeons in black, yellow, and olive, Mini Boogie Men, Mini Dungeons in Black, Black/Purple, and Barred Olive, and Silk Kitties in black or Olive have been some of our better patterns this week, especially in the cloud cover. Most of the time you can get fish to chase them down with a fairly fast retrieve, but be sure to slow it down in the faster seams to give them a chance to eat it.
We have also been getting a number of calls with regards to Salmonflies. Yes, there are some shucks being found around Ennis and a few people have got some fish to come up, but it’s not good yet. The first 3-4 days are always pretty tough down low, as fish are constantly gorging themselves on the nymphs, but it’ll be game time here shortly.
