Category: Fishing Reports

Two days of father and daughter fishing on the upper Madison. Day one consisted of floating from Raynolds Pass Bridge to Pine Butte Creek. We decided to only fish the big water out in the middle of the river where the bank anglers were in fear of wading. The rainbows and browns did the rest. The flies that we used on the Upper River were Delektables: Flashback Megaprinces in size #4, #6, #8; Flashback Olive Megaprince in size #6 and #8 and a Delektable soft hackled red worm in size #12. The bank anglers were happy catching as we floated downstream. The BWO’s were emerging all day and we suspected the bank anglers were having big fun fishing the baetis hatch.

Day two started afloat from Palisades to McAtee Bridge. Since this section of the river is open to fishing out of the boat we decided to combine some streamer fishing out of the boat and some wading using nymphs.

The pictures tell the story. I rowed and Allie pounded BIG browns and rainbows on Delektable Double Screamers in Black/Olive and Olive. The nymphs were the same as day one on the upper river wade float.

Dan

As Dan Greene and I launched our boat into a rainstorm yesterday evening after work, we knew that a rainy opener would certainly mean good fishing on the Upper Madison. Over the past week, the water visibility has diminished to about a foot, but the fish are still eating. I started off the evening while Dan rowed with a #18 Flashback Olive Micro-mayfly dropped from a #8 Delektable Flashback Megaprince. After three fish on, I switched to the rower seat and watched Dan crush cookie-cutter rainbows on a #4 Delektable Megaprince and #8 Delektable Olive Hurless Stone. Once in sight of the car, we pulled the boat over to wade-fish, and this is where we had the most success. With the low visibility, it pays to fish each run methodically. We were able to pull 2-3 fish out of each hole with about 10-20 casts in between each fish. Dan Greene caught the fish of the day, an 18” brown on a #4 Delektable Megaprince, solidifying the day’s lesson, “Go Big!” Though tired, wet, and cold, a successful opening day left Dan and me with ear to ear smiles as we pulled into the boat launch at around 10:00 P.M.

John and Dan

Last night Craig, his buddy Geoff, and I went where the water meets the stones and the murk meets the mud and just put the smack down on them fishies :).

Geoff was on his maiden trip with a fly rod and with all the worms coming out of the banks, he hooked up right away with a pink San Juan Worm. His first fish was accompanied by a nice rainbow on my rod also; 🙂 catching! The water was muddy coming in from the creek near us, so we fished the seam.  They smacked all the stones in a size 8 that I threw at them, and after a while I quit changing because it was getting little chilly and any one was going to work just the sameJ If you need a little confidence booster, they are hungry! Just get it them on the bottom quick and get ready! Flies that caught were as follows; Delektable Mega Bead Headed Prince Flashback size 8, Delektable Mega Prince without the flashback, Delektable Olive Hurless Stone size 8 (both standard and flashback), Midnight Fire Delektable Bug Midnight Fire Black Legs size 4, and Delektable Grey Hurless Stone Flashback size 8. There was no real need to change it up, they were munchin’ down 🙂

Happy Fishing!!!

Craig, Dan G, Dan, Marty, John, and Geoff

The River clarity was about three feet today on Mother’s Day… A nice green color.

Early on, the fish were hungry then we had to work for our fish mid afternoon. Later we found some pods of rising fish in back eddies. Flies of choice were the Delektable™ Mega Prince and Hurless imitating the Skwalla Stones. Later on we were scoring well on dries. Caddis and March Browns were coming off and the fish were biting. We tried a Royal Chubby as the lead fly and trailed it with one of Dave Bloom’s Hi Vis Caddis. it worked well.

Gregg Machel, our web technical consultant came to visit and help with our software upgrades and got to fish with us on Mother’s day after we completed some big computer work. He caught a number of trout on the double dry combo.

Our friend Dan, of Rocky Mountain Embroidery, who does our Beartooth Flyfishing embroidery had a good day with a very nice catch shown in his photo with his special boat, he made himself. Nice fish Dan!

Nancy, Dan, Gregg, and RME Dan