Folks in Montana are gathering to develop a management plan for the famed Madison. While something like this seems overdue considering the tales I have heard of the rubber hatch on the lower river (see the link above for more info), one can’t help but worry about what Malcolm Gladwell described as “creeping determinism,” or [...]
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Once again hot off the press from the Madison Gallatin TU Chapter: The ditch rescue has been postponed. The managers of the ditch have not closed the headgates as we were informed on Friday. Seems the managers are at war with a beaver who has taken up residence in the ditch! It appears that the rescue [...]
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Hot off the press from the Madison Gallatin TU Chapter: As you may know, thousands of trout typically are stranded in the 16-mile-long ditch when the head gate is closed in the fall. In the past volunteers have returned thousands of fish to the Madison River. Valley Garden Ranch, the ditch operator, has been very helpful in [...]
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I took this a couple of weeks back. Some of that snow is flowing down the Madison now.
Fall has hit the Madison. The Lower has woken back up, the Upper is still kicking ass, and the river is in all around great shape. Fishing the Lower these days is pretty easy. Crawfish, streamers, sculpins, big princes and stonefly nymphs are all taking fish. Look for a pretty good Baetis hatch in the [...]
The Madison is fishing well right now. Even the Lower is starting to come around. Water temps are cooling off, and flows have come back up on the Upper river, allowing for better floating options. Like I said, the Lower is coming around. Water temps are the main factor, and they are really starting [...]
Flows have come up a bit on the Upper Madison, which is good news for those of us with boats. There still are a few spots that you need to watch pretty carefully, but on the whole it is much better. Due to some of the cool nights, the Lower is finally starting to turn [...]
The Madison continues to fish well. Flows on the Upper river are holding at right under 1,000 cfs. The cooler weather and rain earlier this week bumped flows a little bit, but water clarity was not that affected. The Lower remains locked in the grip of the tubers, but should be starting to fish better [...]
Flows on the Upper Madison have dropped quite a bit since last week. As of this morning, the river was at just below 940 cfs, down from almost 1,300 a few days ago. The lower flows are going to make a couple of section tricky for floaters, but fishing is still good. Unless you are [...]
The Marines have landed in Bozeman (the pic above was taken about an hour ago at our massive Gallatin Field). There’s an interesting story circulating among locals here in Bozeman and Ennis – it has to do with Obama, his upcoming visit to the area and a land purchase in the Madison Valley. Like most [...]
Every once in a while, you get one of those years where almost everything just seems to fall into place and makes fishing great. This just might be one of those years on the Madison. In the past week, PPL has bumped flows out of Hebgen. Yesterday, they dropped back down again, but are still [...]
The Madison, the Upper Madison, anyway is having a pretty good year. There are lots of insects in the water and the fish are happily gorging themselves. The Lower is gone until the fall. Don’t even bother going out there, unless you wanted to rent some scuba gear and poke holes in all the [...]
Musings from Jess at Fire Girl Photography