Okay, the truth be known, the big bugs are out back but in a different way. We haven’t seen any come up to our porch yet and the bugs have not been seen on a regular basis. Customers camping at Ruby Creek saw some there. Folks on floats above Ruby say a few but no one has commented on a regular all over hatch. All reports have been a few here and there but the fish are eating them on top.

Last evening we went out for a very short float to check to verify the stories with real intel. We saw millions of caddis and were covered with a variety of sizes to the point where it was tickling me. Around 8:00 PM we did start to see some salmon flies on the way to McAtee and they were laying eggs. The trout were eating them and larger size caddis. You do have to pay attention to see the take. A number of takes were missed by all of us but it sure was fun. The wind is expected to be gusty tomorrow and hopefully will calm down after. It is a good time to fish. Have fun!

Daniel, one of our new shop recruits was accross the river having fun catching too. He got a ride back to the launch with us.

Oh! One of our new fly tying students, Emmett, scored a really nice trout on the same day. Here’s the picture. Nice one Emmett!

Nancy

June 23, 2012

Our new friends John and his son Connor were fishing with Marty and enjoyed learning how to catch on a fly.

June 16, 2012

John’s family enjoyed a float with Jim and Marty. Again, the bigger fish were caught on wet flies. The salmon flies weren’t quite there yet but they had fun. The fish were eating wet stone flies.

June 15, 2012

Three guys from the fly shop decided to fish the fishing out of the boat section after work. Roger, Marty, and I put the boat in at Windy Point and floated down to McAtee Bridge. The big brown bomber Caddis were out in size #10 and small Caddis were emerging. I fished a combo of one of my special big Caddis and a Delektable Halo Caddis as a dropper. The river was especially good to me that evening.

Three browns over 18" and a good number of all age classes. The wet flies that are working now include: nymphs; stoneflies; Pat’s Rubberlegs in Brown or Black; Delektable Twisted Wires in size #14; BH Caddis emergers in #14 and #16. The dry flies that are working include: large attractors in sizes #8 and #10; PMX’s, Willies’ Red Ants; Chubby Chernobyls; Delektable Twisted X’s; Delektable Twisted Sisters and Elk Hair Caddis in sizes #10, #14, and #16. They still love streamers: Delektable Screamers in double and single in Black; Black/Olive; and Badger; Zonkers; and many other sculpin patterns.

Good luck on the Upper Madison. It’s looking great and the Big Bugs will be on their way soon.

Dan, Marty, and Roger

Dan and Craig add:

Evening was pretty good up this way for the Beartooth boys. We all got a chance to get out and throw some dries recently with all the caddis flying around. I went out by myself on Friday evening and after seeing all the bugs and no rises yet, I thought I would throw ‘em anyway. First cast with a little size 16 caddis with tiny rubber legs, proved true with a fat ‘lil brown.  I was throwing a big caddis trailed by a smaller caddis. I also caught a few on a size 18 Pheasant Tail ‘Lil Spanker. One brown that took the little dropper even had a 4 inch sculpin lodged in its throat. So dries? Yes. Caddis caddis caddis. I pulled 10 or so fish Friday evening with the caddis combo before going home.

Last night was a little more difficult for some reason. I still got some fish on dries, but not as many. They really weren’t hitting the bigger caddis’ patterns until later, but the little size 16 with the legs was good again.  Craig and I went down to Ruby and waded for some hours, we both did ok. Craig was drowning nymphs and got a nice rainbow right away. I believe he caught that one on a size 14 Olive Seringold. I then switched to dries that way we covered both. I stayed with a big brown caddis with legs followed by a smaller caddis with legs for the rest if the night and did ok. Nothing crazy, but still a decent amount of action. The water is a lot clearer than last week, so if you are like me and have to wade most of the time, be a little sneakier 🙂 Happy fishing!

June 13 and 14th

Friends: Joe, Robert, Jerry, and Jake had fun with Gunnar catching some nice trout and in a variety of sizes. And yes, there were a few white fish too. The trout were eating mostly wet bugs. The smaller fish were taking the dries.

Since starting here at the shop I have been bugging Marty to go fishing with me, each time he couldn’t go for various reasons. Today to my surprise he said yes. He was itching to get out and row his raft and really wanted to show me the wade only section. We put in at Raynolds at about 9 o’clock in the Morning and Got to Pine Butte at 4 o’clock. We took our time throughout the float and really worked all of the slack water, Boulders, edges, buckets, ETC. We each caught about five fish that day, but we really had to work for those fish. Note, we stopped and anchored and spent a good amount of time wading different spots. This is a wade only section where boats are permitted for transportation only. You may even see some kayakers on this stretch early in the year when the water is faster and higher.

The water was green with a foot to a foot and a half of visibility. Throughout the day we saw one caddis flying and a few Beatis. We did not have any luck on Micro Mays or Green Machines but they did like a size 16 Delektable Lil’ Spanker Pheasant tails. Before that The Shop Vac in Olive and Brown caught most of the fish. At one specific hole I used a size 8 stonefly nymph that was black with some purple in the dubbing; it caught three fish right away but didn’t work at all the rest of the day. That’s fishing! We need to fish more and harder!

Craig

So, I got the chance to go fishin a little with the last three days off. The first day, Craig (from the shop) took my lady and I and our little puppy Bill up to Pine Butte in the walk/wade section.

The second day however was a little different. A buddy and I floated from Raynolds Pass to Lyons stopping at every pocket and back eddy there was to offer. The water was fast and high, but awesome color. It started snowing when we got out of the truck. Bill (the puppy) was cold but not complaining, and neither were we 🙂 It being so overcast, we had confidence it was gunna be a great day. Our first stop was only a few hundred yards down. We pulled in below a huge boulder pocket and got out to fish (walk/wade section only). I put on a Delektable Mega Prince Flashbacksize #8 with a big ‘ole pink worm as a dropper again. Fish on! Two 18 inch rainbows, and a 15 inch rainbow in that hole. Right away we got into them and just never really got out of ‘em:)

We caught a bunch of browns on the worm and the stonefly patterns including the Delektable Big Red. A few were caught on the Delektable Spanker pattern in the pheasant tail size #10. I threw a couple of caddis emerger patterns too only pulling some small fish on those. The water was getting clearer, still only a few feet of viz, but perfect! It was fast water and it was quite windy. I didn’t throw any streamers like I should have on that cloudy, cold day 🙁 Once again, my fingers were cold and there was no real reason to switch up.

Yesterday I went with some adopted parents of mine and floated from Pine Butte to Lyons. Bill also went along for the ride and slept the entire way again. Ah the life of a puppy 🙂 I wanted Ed and Mary to catch some fish, so we threw on the stoned worm combo first. And to nobody’s surprise, they got locked in right way. Ed caught 2 really nice browns right away still in view of the boat launch, both of which were near 18 inches. Â Ed’s wife, Mary caught a nice rainbow and a real nice brown on the Delektable Mega Price size #8 also. My buddy and I were going through the smaller drop patterns with big Skwalla patterns on top. I tied on a few caddis emergers and smaller emerging nymph patterns after seeing some subsurface rises; and got some smaller fish.

Delektable Olive Serengold size #14 and some smaller Spanker patterns were working a little, but the one fly that got me the “big one that got away” was a size #14 Red Headed Step-Child. I hooked into a monster brown on this little guy in the fast water and had quite the fight with him only to loose him a few feet away in the end. Pretty fish though 🙂 oh well! Anyway, the water is great out there and you can creep right up on them with little effort the way this bit of murk is. Most of the fish we got into were just inside the color. So, don’t let that little bit of that color stop you; they still have to eat 🙂 happy fishing!!!

Dan

Young Dan and I were fortunate enough to get the same day off from working in the shop. We have been watching the river and listening to others reports and decided that floating the upper river in part of the wade section would be a good bet. We floated from Pine butte down to Windy Point. The day started off a little slow, the river rose a foot and the water was green with about a foot of visibility. We missed a couple fish right away using the Delektable Olive Hurless flashback with a Caddis emerger following it. We used 10 foot leaders adding weight as needed. The water color looked great with a little murk until we hit the West Fork. Mud was dumping out of there. So, this is where we got the famous San Juan worm out:)

Later on in the float we ran into a spot where muddy water was coming in on both sides, Dan suggested we fish it and see what happens. It wasn’t ten minutes before we had a double on. Both of the fish took the worm right on the seam; a few more fish were taken out of this spot before we moved on. The rest of the day went the same way, Muddy water and some fish throughout. We spent the day Nymphing using long leaders and a lot of weight. We would start off with one B and keeping adding some as needed. Dan put a Delektable Olive Hurless Flashback size #8 on with a very pink size #8 San Juan (with a hotbead) as the dropper. They loved the worms and one trout even had worms pouring out of his mouth when we pulled him up, straight gorging. Dan kept the pink worm on and kept changing out the stonefly patterns. We did really well with the combo. We went thru all the juicy Skwalla patterns we had, but they just seemed to only want the worm that day.

Craig and Dan

May 30, 2012

Two Expert Guides/Outfitter and a new Shuttle Guy…

We floated Raynolds Pass to Pine Butte. You can get out of the boat and wade fish, no fishing from a boat. Dan on the oars the first part of the trip, Marty getting in shape for summer guiding finishing up. Dan is a ballerina handling Nancy’s drift boat. You need to be an expert oarsman on the upper part of the Madison.

Excellent fishing with conditions ideal. Overcast with no wind or rain. Big stones mostly, Delektable Hurless and sometimes Delektable Lil’ Spankers. The bottom not to difficult to wade, but the river is fast. Dan and Marty might dispute, but the new guy Rog had the big Brown of the day. All had great fish, Bows and Browns mostly in the 16-18 inch range. Elk, antelope, eagles, osprey, and of course plenty of fish, all in an excellent day of wade fishing.

Roger