Fishing Report for the Madison River in Montana 7-6-2016

The Madison River has gotten over its Salmon Fly and 4th of july bender and has settled into some great summer fishing. There are still salmon flies above Lyons Bridge and if you fish a big bug up high you will still get the fish with pattern hang over to rise and eat but for the most part it is history. The salmon flies were great this year and if you fished here in the last few weeks you understand just how good it was. Now that we are past the crazyness summer fishing has continued on really strong. It makes me wonder if the strong fishing now is the result of the bottom flow of water from Hebgen that we finally have this year. There feels like better and more dry fly fishing then past years and the only change is the dam being fixed. Stay tuned because the clown engineers at the dam are scheduling more work for next year and we will again have top flow during the summer. Get it now while it lasts. If you fishing now think Yellow sallie, golden, PMD and especially caddis. We have been experiencing some of the most dense caddis hatches I have ever seen. If your up to fish late into the day it will be worth your time. We have been running late and seeing pods or rising fish to caddis that reminds us of the Missouri near Craig. Again if you can miss dinner for a day it will be worth it. Things have been getting going during the cooler days about 11 am and continuing on. We have been fishing lots of dry dropper combos of yellow sallie, caddis nymph with great success. If you looking for body count nymphing is still the best method to do this. Our rig of late has been a golden stone nymph with a caddis or yellow sallie behind all fished on 3X. If your looking to throw streamers things are just getting good. Dragging bunny fur behind the boat has produced some really big fish as of late. Sparkle minnows and sculpins have the best. Finding most of our bigger fish in really shallow water so do not overlook the skinny stuff. As for summer fishing the Madison River is doing really well. Get out and fish now and catch more than just fish.