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

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