Lower Madison River

This week Pete and I headed west and found ourselves floating the Lower Madison looking for pre-spawn Rainbows. Those of you familiar with this stretch of water know that trying to unlock its secrets can be an exercise in futility. Pete and got lucky and hit the Madison on one of her good days and were rewarded with sun shine, low winds, and hungry trout. Though we did find a couple of fish from the boat, most were caught while wading and thoroughly fishing the small pockets and runs. Many of our fish ate the typical tail water flies like San Juans, eggs, and midge nymphs, but the larger fish were looking for bigger protein and pounced on crawdad patterns. The fishing was so good that the next day I headed back for a few hours and hit the hot spots from the day before. I hit the water at about 11am on another sunny day and found midges clustering at the edge of the river and a pod of fish taking advantage of them. Ten minutes later and armed with a size 20 Para Adams, I had my first dry fly caught fish of the 2010 season. I got about a half hour of dry fly fishing before the wind picked up and blew the bugs off the river and forced me to back to the standard winter nymph rig. The fishing wasn't as good as the day before, but I still had enough action to keep it interesting.

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