Don’t Forget! The Upper Madison will be closed from Quake to McAtee from March 1 until the third Saturday in May. This is your last week in 2009 to experience some really sweet winter catch and release fishing on that stretch. Our shop is open during winter hours Monday through Saturday and sometimes Sunday from 9:00AM to 5:00PM. Dan will be tying flies on Satuday February 28th at Troutfitters in Bozeman starting at noon.
Once again our buddy Roger enjoyed supplying this new fishing report. Dan, Nancy, and Jenn are busy in the shop building rods and working on the shopping cart.
Today was Chinook like weather: mid 40’s; sunny; and almost Spring like with hardly any wind. Afternoon fishing in Montana with warm temperatures in mid-February is always special. Catching trout was excellent, so it turned out to be an exceptional day of fishing. Walking downstream I was using one of my favorite 2 nymph rig combinations: a #8 Delektable Mega Prince, Olive, on top with a #14 Tungsten Epoxyback Pheasant tail as a dropper. The fish were hungry, including nice Trout and huge Whitefish, with every cast producing. It seemed like the Bows were taking the larger nymph, while the Browns and Whitefish were taking the dropper. Dan gave me a lesson earlier today on double hauling and mending while testing some of the newly built Beartooth Custom rods. This gave me some new confidence to experiment with my casting and try dry flies. Besides, I had already caught plenty on nymphs and sited Midges hatching on the surface but no noses in site. Working back to the car and casting upstream, with the beautiful weather, I started to cast dry flies. Using Illusion Fluorocarbon 4X and 5X, along with a size #12 Parachute Adams up front as an indicator, trailed by a size #20 Midge emerger, I came up with 2 16" and 17" Rainbows. Both took the Midge fly in the skinny ripple water. This was a great surprise as the sun was setting on a wonderful day.
February 5, 2009
We returned from Andros and found we missed some really great fishing on the Upper Madison during January and now. Keep in mind folks, the Upper Madison will be closed from Quake to McAtee from March 1 until the third Saturday in May. This is your opportunity to experience some really sweet winter catch and release fishing. Our shop is open during winter hours Monday through Saturday and sometimes Sunday from 9:00AM to 5:00PM. Our buddy Roger supplied this report happily.
The conditions were overcast, warm for Montana winter around 41 degrees and windy. He experienced a hatch of midges around 3:00 to 4:30. The fish were not feeding on the surface. He would have tried dries but it was too windy. Stream flows remain about the same at around 826 cfs at Kirby. Upper Madison River
It was a great day catching plenty of nice trout and his first winter whitefish. He was fishing bucket water casting 35-40 feet of line out with a two nymph rig and indicator and no additional weights. The takes were more at the bottom of the bucket in the riffle at the 3/4 swing of the flies.
The flies he used included: Morrish’s WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) in Claret #8; Delektable Mega Prince Olive Flashback #6; Epoxyback Tungsten Copper-Copper #14. The best fish was a 191/2" Brown Trout, guides would say with shoulders. He caught a monster Whitefish. The browns were taking the small trailer fly and the Rainbows were predominantly taking the larger Delektable Fly. Most of the Rainbows were between 16-18 inches and great fighters.
