Lower Madi at Greycliff yesterday afternoon. Sunshine. 37 degrees and little wind. Fishing rising to midges. Hot damn.
Madison
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 River Foundation is sponsoring their Ennis on the Madison Fly Fishing Festival this weekend – here’s a link to the Foundations web page for the event (full schedule available). Here’s part of their description of the event – For the fifth year in row ClackaCraft Drift Boats of Clackamas, Oregon has donated a […]
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 […]
The Park section of the Madison River is still giving up some very nice morning fishing during the PMD spinner falls – they’re roughly from 730 or so until 1030 or 11. Our PMD maniac friends are having the most fun in the meadow below Madison junction and the section between 7 Mile and the […]
Not too much has changed on the Madison in the past week. The summer pattern is here, and is likely to be here for some time. The Lower is still out of it. Hit it early if you have to fish it at all. Should be getting better this fall. Damn tubers. The Upper […]
The Lower Madison is pretty much effectively shut off at this point. The combination of rising water temps and the damn tubers is killer. Look for this stretch to improve come fall. If you do feel compelled to fish the Lower, hit it in mornings before the legions of tubers awake from their drunken stupor. […]
We’ve been hearing bits and pieces of this story for a few weeks now, and lo and behold Richard Lessner, PhD, the Executive Director of the Madison River Foundation in Ennis has just published a nice report on the project in the 14 July 2009 MRF newsletter. Here’s his piece in its entirety – […]
Ah summer. The time when one part of the Madison shuts down and one part hits its stride. Such is life. The Lower remains under siege from the armies of drunken tubers. The only time you can really fish this stretch right now is in the mornings, when water temps are cool and before the […]
