Madison example

As the weather won't permit any fishing today I thought I'd post an example of the kind of information that I see as valuable and interesting for visiting anglers to Southwest Montana.

After arriving in Bozeman late last May I was anxious to get out and fish. Unfortunately run off was in full force and on many drainages more severe than usual. The upside of great snowpack is often a prolonged run off period, certainly a fair trade, but it can be frustrating to see the weather finally be pleasant and yet have limited options to get out and fish. I was checking all the local fishing reports supplied by the shops in the Greater Yellowstone area with no encouraging reports.

A friend and I decided to head to the Upper Madison and check it out for ourselves. We stopped at a fly shop along the way that I like very much, and spend money in on occassion. I distinctly remember the statement of the guy behind the counter when I asked him about the Upper Madison. He said, "I'm not afraid of high water, but that sh$@ aint right." He advised us not to waste our time heading further up to where we intended to wet a line.

Against his judgement we decided we'd come this far and we might as well go see for ourselves. When we arrived the picture above is what we saw. For those who've never had the pleasure of fishing the Madison it is normally a pretty clear running river. In fact no one I talked too could remember seeing the Madison quite like this. It looked kind of like split pea soup. It had a thick, chalky appearance with less than 6 inches of visibility.

As expected there was no one on the river. As anglers come the world over to fish the Madison to say it is rare to have the river to yourself is an understatement. Of course, as I looked at water raging with no visibility at all, and the guys that make a living directly from the river having told me not to waste my time, I thought perhaps having it to ourselves would also mean a fishless day.

The reality was far from it. We caught a couple dozen fish, in a few hours of fishing. We ended up fishing the Upper Madison a half dozen times over the next two weeks with the water high and off color. It was during this time that I hooked and lost the biggest Brown I'd connected with in the Madison. We didn't bring a net and just couldn't get it out of the heavy water but had it within a leader length...probably 23" and heavy.

If I remember correctly in all those trips we saw 2 anglers. Meanwhile all the shops were still telling people to avoid the Upper Madison. The most successful flies were nothing exotic but were also not flies that anyone in the area would have reccomended either. I've included a few pictures of fish we caught during this time.