June 17

Fishing the past week has been excellent. Reports are trickling in of adult salmonflies between 8 Mile and Burnt Tree, so they should start to show up here around the shop within the week.  Nymphing is phenomenal (as usual), with big black stonefly patterns being the weapon of choice. Little nymphs are starting to work as well, so don’t be afraid to tie on an 18 lightning bug or Lil Spanker if things slow down a bit. Look for the soft slow water along the bank, perfect staging water for stoneflies, and faster riffles out in the middle as well. Dry fly action has been pretty darn good as well, with fish taking a variety of caddis patterns, as well as the big bugs. Don’t be afraid to throw a salmonfly dry before the hatch has showed up, as fish will key in on them in anticipation of the hatch. Indeed, dry flies can outfish nymphs right now, as evidenced last night when John and I went out after work. Almost immediately, John caught a slew of fish on dries, while I unproductively nymphed for a few hours. After getting spanked for a while, I finally switched to dries, and caught fish almost immediately. Right around 9, once the sun disappeared, the action REALLY turned on, with John landing a ~20” brown on a size 16 caddis out in fast water, a good consolation after missing a 24 incher about an hour earlier. All in all, the river is fishing amazingly, and should only get better over the next 2 weeks or so.

Daniel and John

June 18

I went out yesterday from windy to ruby on a nice slow float from 10 to 5:30. Early on was great, I stopped at all the buckets and took my time wade fishin’. Nice fat browns on the black girdle bug in the size 4 were ever so sneakily taken from behind the buckets. The big stonefly nymphs were really doing good for me. I went through the small bead head rotation also, but only got little dinks out of that, so I stayed with the big setup and continued down to Ruby feedin em what they wanted. Down by the ruby rocks I threw the dries at em again but they did not want mine I guess 🙂 A few rises there with a miss and some expurlatives, but no fish out there this time. I parked the boat at ruby and waited there for  John and Daniel to get off work so we could continue down to Mac for the evening. Dries. Holy Cow!

The winds picked up for a little while, after a lot of wind knots some line to line hang ups in the boat and a few crashes into gravel bars, we jumped out of the boat for some wade fishing. Dries are on! Small caddis patterns along with some larger flies like a #12 Royal Madame X were all getting strikes and catching fish. A nice fish ate a Dan’s Secret Salmon Fly but the large foamie dries were not producing a ton of fish. Two days of great fishing and great fun with boys left all of us satiated at least for another day.

Dan, John, and Daniel

Marty guided some friends of ours from The Trout Shop in Craig. They came to visit for a different fishing experience and to learn more about the Madison. It was a day of mixed conditions, with a pleasant morning, turning into stormy and windy, then sunny and warm, then more storms, then clearing, then … Well, you get the idea.

But despite the drastically changing weather, there were happy, hungry fish to be found. Fishing was better in the calmer periods and slow during the stormy times, as expected. And the changing weather also stifled any hatches, with no bugs to be seen, so we went down deep after them, having success with various nymphs. In the morning, Flashback Gray Delektable Hurless in size 6 and 8, and size 14 Silver Lightning Bugs worked best. In the afternoon, size 6 and 8 Black Pat’s Rubberlegs were the go-to fly. The river also showed little effect from run-off, with clear water for the majority of the float, and only stained water in some sections. In a word, the water conditions were perfect.

Oh, and yes, someone did catch a hog in honor of Mike, or so Nancy says.

Marty and Nancy