Streamer Fishing the Madison
Being a self diagnosed streamer addict, I was eager to get up to Ennis and throw big streamers for browns. Hailing from Colorado, Montana was known as the streamer fishing mecca. I’d hear stories and see pictures of prehistoric brown trout being landed with 5 inches of rabbit, schlapen and marabou hanging from his mouth. I spent all winter tying big bugs and put together a solid inventory of streamers. Upon arrival in early March, I set out on the Madison in search of trophy browns. The streamer bite was off and I went back to nymphing. Though I’m not the biggest fan of nymphing, it is a productive way to get into fish and honestly I was itching to land some trout. Over the course of a couple weeks the deep dark world of nymph fishing proved it productivity. To my surprise the only fish I was landing were rainbows. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought the Madison was predominately a rainbow trout fishery. Don’t get me wrong, a love a good bow to the net but I was searching for the large aggressive browns that I kept hearing about.
This past week working in the shop I saw a picture of 28†brown that destroyed a sex dungeon. You can imagine how hard it was for me to contain myself and stay in the shop and not go fishing. For those of you asking what the heck a sex dungeon is, don’t let your mind wonder too far, it’s one of the best streamer patterns in the game. This one happened to be extra large and while I’m creating receiving vouchers for the shirts we just got in my mind was in a totally different place. I was focused on one thing, how glorious that strike, fight and release of that 28†fish must have been. I should probably start day dreaming more often given the fact I got the shirts tagged, priced and put on hangers faster than I could rig my rod. John might read this and cringe, but I promise they were all done properly. Anyways, I was able to get out for a couple hours last night so I drove to a stretch that I knew would produce some early evening fish. Had the nymph rig set up and I didn’t feel like changing it out so I started with that.
Expecting to get into fish right away, I was left standing on the bank puzzled as to where all the fish went. I’m sure they were still in the exact spot I left them a few days prior but they wanted absolutely nothing to do with what I was feeding them. Sun started to set and figured why not throw on my streamer and give that a shot. A few cast later I finally felt that tug I so desperately wanted. I set so hard I ripped this little 4-inch fish out the water. My streamer was every bit of 3 maybe 4 inches and why this little bow thought eating that was a good idea is anyones guess. I came upon a small hole that looked fishy; and it was. As soon as my fly hit the water I watched two browns race for the streamer. Anticipating a strike, I ripped the 3 inches of meat out of this fish’s mouth. I casted again and the same thing happened. And yes I ripped this one out as well. A third cast yielded only one fish to move and he followed it all the way back the bank where he decided it looked good enough to eat. It was a nice brown, not a prehistoric brute, but a nice fish. Played it for a good bit, almost got her in the net until she decided to turn into some cover and subsequently spit the hook. Called it day after that but was left amazed with how those brown reacted to my streamer.
I’m not really sure where I was going with this story, just that it has been all I can think about this morning so I decided to write about. I know I was running my streamer by rainbows but not one of them even budged. Its like they were blind to it. The browns however were not blind to it and instead they took it as a big meaty pre-dinner snack. I just goes to show how protein hungry brown trout are. Yes, they are more aggressive and ruthless, but they hunt down that streamer like they haven’t eating in weeks. Fighting each other to see who gets the snack. Brown trout amaze me. They will forever be my favorite trout to fish for.
