Madison River Fishing Report for July 4th, 2018
Dam: 1,300 cfs
Kirby: 1,510 cfs
Varney: 1,960 cfs
It’s hard to believe that July is already and with some of the most precipitous weeks we’ve seen in June for quite some time, it has been really nice to bask in good ol’ fashion Summer sunshine over the last week. The river has dropped to around 1,500 at Kirby and just over 2,000 cfs in town which is pretty much the perfect flow for both sections of the river.
And now for what’s really on everybody’s mind…SALMONFLIES! Right now you can find adults between Raynold’s Bridge and about midway between Ruby and McAtee Bridge. Fishing the hatch started off a little tougher than usual this year due to high water and some issues with Squaw Creek throwing in a lot of mud, but we’ve seen a dramatic increase in dry fly activity since the river cleared up and flows started to get below 2,200 cfs at the Varney gauge. We are still finding plenty of good fish willing to eat the dry off the bank, but with the recent drop in flows the middle has started to fish a lot better as well. We also got reports that they popped between the lakes yesterday as well, so if fishing big dries if what you seek you have a lot of water to chose from.
Aside for Salmonflies, there are still plenty of other bugs on the menu right now. PMDs, Caddis, Yellow Sallies, Flavs, Green Drakes, and Golden Stones can be found in good numbers throughout entire river and we are in store for what should be an amazing season of dry fly fishing all the way through August on the Upper Madison. The nymph bite has also been good to downright stupid most days on a variety of caddis larva/pupa, PMD emergers, yellow sally nymphs, and serendipities. Long story short, the Upper Madison is about as good as it gets right now!
Streamer fishing has slowed down a little bit with all the bugs fluttering about, but you can still get into them early in the morning.
