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June 12th and 13th and we were killin the trout with the salmon flies! Purple haze worked 
some but mostly with the big nasty salmon flies! Dad and I fished through two days and it got pretty chilly and rainy down at the Big Hole! We still had a blast!
David N Lamm
We had a great family day off. It was big to get Me out of the shop for a full day of fishing 
away. It was great fun and very entertaining. The salmon flies were there and golden stones and caddis. Even the fish entertained us. We saw one good sized trout rise twice above the surface almost jumping into our raft, it jumped so high. The water was perfect, the true tea color of the Big Hole.
We had a full mix of weather conditions similar to the previous day with changes in wind patterns to 30 miles an hour against us and some pretty big storms, then sunny and calm, then big weather again. That was very interesting casting and rowing. We started off with a Royal Chubby and a nymph trailer with some action, more on the top. We were seeing tons of Caddis out and seeing rising fish so I changed to a double dry Caddis and Allie changed her dropper. Allie got more hits on her combo and I did not get hardly any hits on the caddis combo. Then we started seeing more Salmon Flies and switched to one of Dan’s special Salmon Flies with a custom dubbed body. I call them furry tummy Salmon Flies. The trout really went for this fly on a regular basis. The next trick was to figure out how to land them. I was out of practice and with the salmon flies, you have to wait an extra second to let them gulp it. I was very entertained while missing a several trout. Allie was the champ scoring many, both on the dry and the dropper.
Dan stopped in a side channel and got a really nice fish in the quiet water but we missed getting the photo. He caught a half dozen more fish in the same area same fly combo. Further down river the Goldens were really coming off and we switched to the furry tummy Golden and it was my turn to catch more. The fish were really biting. Funny thing is with Salmon flies, the fish do tend to hit more with the wind and weather than in the calm as that is what causes the big flies to fall in the water.
What a fun day! Thanks for rowing Dan!
Nancy
Marty guided some friends of ours from The Trout Shop in Craig. They came to visit for a 
different fishing experience and to learn more about the Madison. It was a day of mixed conditions, with a pleasant morning, turning into stormy and windy, then sunny and warm, then more storms, then clearing, then … Well, you get the idea.
But despite the drastically changing weather, there were happy, hungry fish to be found. 
Fishing was better in the calmer periods and slow during the stormy times, as expected. And the changing weather also stifled any hatches, with no bugs to be seen, so we went down deep after them, having success with various nymphs. In the morning, Flashback Gray Delektable Hurless in size 6 and 8, and size 14 Silver Lightning Bugs worked best. In the afternoon, size 6 and 8 Black Pat’s Rubberlegs were the go-to fly. The river also showed little effect from run-off, with clear water for the majority of the float, and only stained water in some sections. In a word, the water conditions were perfect.
Oh, and yes, someone did catch a hog in honor of Mike, or so Nancy says.
Marty and Nancy
It was stormy on Monday evening when my husband Tryston and I went out to fish the
creek on some private land by our home. We managed to catch a gap between rather large thunder storms and caught the water perfectly!
In the short hour and a half that we fished, the fish were eager and eating both on the surface and below the surface. I had a Royal Stimulator as my top fly and a Delektable Mr Rubberlegs Prince as my dropper. The fish ate them both up like crazy!
Tryston had a hopper pattern as a top fly (for indicator purposes) and a Delektable CDC Baby as a dropper behind that. He had a little trouble getting them to bite at first while he was in shallow waters but as soon as he hit the deeper holes, the bite was on! He used his brand new BT Grizzly 4/5 Wt fly rod with a burled wood handle that Dan Delekta made and new Galvan reel on this trip, and boy did he have fun breaking them in! We didn’t even need to change flies once the entire time we were there.
Talk about fun!
Jenn
Last night, Dan Greene and I set out from our camp at Ruby Creek to give Dan a refresher
in fishing the Madison after his two week hiatus on the east coast. The water has come up just a bit and is starting to get a little murkier. Visibility is still over a foot though and the fishing well…great! Things started slow for us with a long hike up river, but picked up quickly once we wetted our flies. I missed a nice rainbow on an “undisclosed large dry” to start things off and got a dose of dry fly fever though the rise was tough, and I knew I wouldn’t be cured until I pinned one with a large dry. Eventually I hooked into a nice fish on my hunk of foam and continued to get action for a little while right before dark. I also caught a couple dropping a # 14 Delektable Lime Juice off my large dry.
Dan Greene abandoned the dries and started sinking nymphs in deeper runs. He 
caught a small brown and rainbow on a #4 Delektable Megaprince and #6 Delektable Gray Hurless. Right before dark, his action also picked up and yanked a few nice rainbows out of a deep run with his double stone rig. The pictures say it all! All in all, the evening worked out as planned. We both caught fish, and Dan settled back into Montana fishing. It was a good night.
John
We were lucky to have three rowers on the Big Hole River float. Some call it R and D; I call
it a day off with my buddies. Marty, Jamie, and I decided to dump the raft in at Melrose and float over 20 miles to Bottom Notch. We spotted some Salmon Flies in the air so we went to the big dries with stonefly nymph droppers and the pictures tell the story. Jamie caught the big fish of the day with a 23″ Brown Trout while Marty was rowing.
Dan
Today was a very interesting day with different reports. Our friends Ross and Emmett, 
especially Emmett scored heavily on a float from Lyons to Palisades. Emmett is doing really well learning to tie his own flies and is a young serious fly fisherman. We expect Ross will have him rowing someday soon. They sure have fun fishing together, father and son. Emmett scored using the Delektable Brown Stoner, Pat’s Orange and Brown Rubberlegs, and a Hare’s Ear Nymph.
We had two other friends who don’t know the river and had a challenging day, we think most of the challenges go with the fact it was a sunny day and required special technique to find the line.
Nancy, Dan, and long time steelhead fishing friend Jamie, floated Palisades to McAtee in the afternoon and did work for
their fish but caught a number of small to medium sized trout and missed some bigger ones. They tried almost everything with the best results on a Chubby with a Caddis behind it, a Chubby with a small nymph behind it (Tungsten Rainbow Warrior, Tungsten Prince, Delektable Lil’ Spanker in Blue). A Two nymph rig worked with Pat’s Brown Rubberlegs size 8 and smaller nymphs as a trailer. They also tried Streamers and Double Screamers but the sun stopped the action on streamers.
Nancy
It was a great day on the Madison with my husband Tryston and guide Dan Delekta. We went from Windy Point to McAtee Bridge and the weather was cool with occasional sprinkles of rain and a light north wind. I was using a brand new Brown Bear 4/5 Wt rod with a beautiful buck eyed burled wood handle that Dan Delekta made for me for Christmas along with a new olive Galvan open back reel, this was my first fishing trip with the new rod and it proved to be the best fly rod I’ve ever used! Thank you so much Dan for the most amazing and beautiful Christmas gift I’ve ever had! OK, on to the report!
The fish were very eager and continuously ate the #8 Delektable Mega Prince Copper Back throughout the day, I never had to change flies. The sizes were mainly larger fish of about 14” and up with only a few small fish, all were just as eager. I also had a #10 Chubby Chernobyl in a royal color tied about 24” in front of the Mega Prince and this also got many hits later as it warmed up in the day. Big fun!
Tryston was fly fishing for the first time on this trip and had a great time! Dan was a great teacher being very patient and helped him learn tons of tricks and techniques that will keep him on the right track now. He hooked a lot of fish, big and small throughout the day as well, but had trouble landing them. He used mainly a double nymph rig with weights to bring the flies down to the bottom. He had the best luck with the #8 Delektable Mega Prince Copper Back, #8 Gray Delektable Hurless Stone and the #8 Olive Delektable Hurless Stone. I would say he’s officially hooked on fly fishing now!
Thank you again Dan and Nancy for this great day on the river that will live in our memories forever!
Jenn
We had a fun threesome in the raft: Bill, Nate, and Greg. Dad and his sons.
We love family trips!
It got pretty interesting with three casting out of the boat. This added to the learning experience for sure. Of course our better fishing was when we stopped to wade different sections.
The best results were with the Delektable Mega Princes and Hurless Stones, even better behind a Chubby.
The earlier part of the day was great catching and constant action. By mid afternoon it really slowed down. We had fun and lots of entertainment. Thanks Guys!
Marty
After numerous days of abuse from Dan about my ability to row and fish; we went out on
the river to see what I could actually do. Marty joined us. He was a bit chilly early in the day and warmed up as the weather did. We were unsure about the weather the days prior when we were planning this day off together but we kept with our original plan, launch the boat at 11 am. We Floated from Ruby to Varney and planned to take off whenever we were done fishing. We started off the trip throwing streamers. The browns wanted the big meat Delektable brown/yellow double screamers, and the Delektable black double screamer. The fish weren’t overly aggressive to a fast moving Streamer, if you slowed it done with smaller movements that would induce a strike. Also the Skwallas were out and the Delektable Olive Hurless size 8 and the Delektable Olive mega prince size 8 caught a lot of fish. With the water being a light green color it made it easy to see the buckets against the shallower water. Don’t be afraid to fish the smaller stuff such as 16 Delektable root beer Serengolds, and some olive Shop Vacs for caddis.
Craig
