Madison River Fishing Report for June 29th, 2022
Dam: 787 cfs
Kirby: 1,280 cfs
Varney: 2,020 cfs
The Upper Madison has been been fishing well this week, and flows out of Hebgen Dam have been cut back drastically since our last report. Water clarity is roughly 3-4 feet depending on the section of river you are fishing and we should start to see the river clear up entirely in the next week or so.
We haven’t had a lot of good dry fly fishing yet, but it’s just getting started. In the meantime, nymph and streamer fishing has been solid from top to bottom and we have been doing best on Pat’s Rubber legs, Olive Caddis Larva, AKA Princes, Z-Wing Caddis, Soft Hackles, Yellow Sally Nymphs, and various perdigons under the indicator. Streamer fishing has been very good as well, particularly in the morning before the bugs start hatching, and fish have been chasing larger articulated patterns down on medium to fast retrieves. Some of our better patterns this week have been olive and black Peanut Envys, natural, yellow, and olive sex dungeons, yellow and olive boogie men, and mini dungeons in yellow, barred olive, and black. I would say early morning to noon has been the best window for the strip and then again in the evening, but you can still get some nice fish to chase if you keep at it during the afternoon hours.
We are already seeing good numbers of caddis and PMDs starting to emerge below Lyons Bridge, but the bug on everyone’s mind this time of year is always the salmon fly. There are good numbers of big bugs from Varney to Ennis and lots of people have been chasing them down. Is it good yet? Not really…it always takes a couple days for things to get going, but you will certainly get rewarded if you keep after it — We should start to see bugs crawling above Varney here shortly. Some of our favorite Salmonfly patterns on the Upper Madison are Water Walkers, Cat Pukes, Egg Drop Stones, and Henry’s Fork Foam Stones but don’t forget to throw some golden stones in the mix as well.
