Madison River Outfitters

Entry By Chris King

Short up stream casts to some of my favorite seams at 11pm on the Upper Madison is how I’ve been enjoying the “famed” salmon fly hatch this season.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing like splatting down a size 4 hairy piece of foam in a “blizzard” of naturals, in awe as trout willingly gobble up your offerings, while leisurely soaking up the July sun. However, attached with this luxury is also the “blizzard” of fellow salmon fly chasers. So as our local fisheries see ever increasing angling pressure, especially during the summer months, I make my quest for solitude.

So I thought why not splat these big bugs at night? 1. The big adults often emerge at shoreline during night. 2. The increased opportunity of landing a truly large trout. 3. The river is across the road. 4. Most folks think, why the hell would anyone start fishing at 11pm. These components accompanied by a bright moon made the answer clear. So I rigged up the rod, and headed down the road on a calm July night. Arriving at one of my favorite stretches around 10’ish. I quaffed down a cold PBR, suited up, and donned my headlamp. Hiking up river glistening headlamps could be seen bouncing in the distance migrating back toward the parking area. As I randomly scanned the big boulders that litter this stretch of water for bugs, I was not disappointed. Larger species of caddis flies, golden stones, little yellow and green stoneflies, and just what I was hoping for, salmon flies were all accounted for. It’s quite a treat to witness these large aquatic insects emerge from their aged nymphal shucks.

While the moon ascended into the nighttime sky I arrived at my first slick. As my eyes adjusted and my hearing dialed in, I surveyed the run for any feeding activity and as silence seemed to be setting in it was broke with an aggressive splash. Keys to point out for nighttime dry fly fishing are as follows: a stout leader, a big unsinkable fly (hence the salmon fly and the idea for this excursion), if at all possible no false cast, keeping a short tight line, patience, and a dash of luck. Well maybe, a lot of luck. With this being said, I stripped out some line and half blindly picked out my target, loaded the rod and roll casted about 15’ upstream. Trying to keep my drift as clean as possible, another splash in the vicinity of my fly, I think. I set the hook. Too late, expected. Repeat. Cast, tight line, splash, zzzzzzz, fish on! After a couple strong runs, and some soft strong-arming, I’m treated to a glimpse of my efforts. A nice brown! Not one of the resident monsters of local lore, but nonetheless a nice spunky clean trout. Another hour and a half, and a couple of nice fish later, I call it a night. As I walk back to the rig under the bright midnight moonlight, I relish in the experience and solitude I had been searching for. And reflect how fortunate I am to call this area home. I think I could get use to this night fishing thing.

Entry by Rachel Sang

Between visits to West and now living here, I think it is safe to say that I have fished the Madison more than I have fished anywhere else, however never from a boat until yesterday. Many days have been spent on the wade section and between the lakes but the water below Lyon’s Bridge was something I had never experienced. 

So yesterday, my friends Mike and Casey, being the nice guys that they are, floated me down the Madison. I have to say, I was really pretty nervous to start, they both are excellent fishermen, and while I’ve fished with them before, fishing from a boat was new to me. Weighing the benefits of having the front of the boat or less pressure in the back, I climbed in to the back seat and we were off. 

Okay, I don’t think that I have ever gotten tangled so much in one day of fishing as I did yesterday! I knew fishing out of the boat would be different, but there was a lot of stuff I hadn’t thought about, like how to keep my line and leader in order between spots, how to hold my rod out of the way, and how quick paced it would be. As I watched slicks go by that I should have been fishing but wasn’t as I was busy untangling, again (to the tauntings of “Tangletron-ette” from the peanut galley in the front of the boat), I really came to appreciate the differences.

However, despite all that, when I actually managed to get my flies out there, fish ate them! We all hooked into some fish, some more than others, and landed a number of beautiful Madison trout. Occasionally, I would have to stop fishing for a second to steal a glimpse of the scenery, it being kind of hard to take time to take it all in while staring at the water. It was a beautiful afternoon and evening, and for the most part we had the river to ourselves.  As we got down towards Pallisades, and I had wrapped myself up again, I decided to call it a day and enjoy the rest of the ride down the river, appreciating the Madison, trout, and good friends. 

Entry By Casey Dixon

Fishing over on the Henry’s Fork this year has been really good. Each time I have gotten over to the Railroad Ranch section, I have done two things, found fish rising, and caught rising fish. Both of those things are good in my mind, especially since the Madison dry fly fishing has started a little later than most years. There has been a smorgasboard of bugs over there and finding the right fly can at times be a challenge, especially when the insects that are there one night are supplemented by a different hatch the next. 

On my last trip over there, I encountered in hatching order; small Caddis, PED’s, big Caddis, Flav’s, PMD spinners, more Caddis, more spinners of vast varieties, and then ending the night with big Brown Drakes. I spent the first 2 1/2 hours of my fishing pulling my hair out trying to figure out what the fish were eating and as soon as I solved the puzzle the trout changed to something else 5 minutes later. My four fishing partners Brennan and Rachel Sang, William Widdicombe, and Mike Loebl were all doing the same bug swapping as I was with mixed results. At one point the fish were on the Flav’s that were coming off, and of course there were no such size 14 olive colored mayflies of any sort in my box. I eventually rose a good fish to a march brown comparadun, proving to me that even on tough water color doesn’t matter as much as I thought.

After rising one fish to that fly I could no longer get anything else to eat it, but that is also about when I saw the giant Brown Drake spinners starting to come off. I tied on my size 8 Brown Drake Parawulff and found a fish or two that wanted to eat it. The first fish that ate it got away as I meefed the rise with my Madison River super fast hookset. The second fish I stuck and eventually coaxed it into letting me unhooked it. The fish was a beautiful fat 20 ish inch rainbow… life was good. Shortly after this I heard obsenities being shouted upstream of me and turned to find out that Mike had broken off a large trout. A little while later I found a trout that was refusing my Parawulff so I tied on the biggest Calftail Spinner I have ever seen and he ate it on the first drift. I landed another 20 ish inch beauty and snapped a quick picture of it then sent him on his way. At this point the Drakes were petering out and the big fish were no longer rising. It was a great night of fishing and upon reaching the car was delivered the news that Brennan had landed a toad that taped out at 23 1/2 inches. Everyone in our party had hooked or caught a nice fish or two and had had shots at other good rainbows rising to the glut of insects.

The Ranch is back and there are big fish again, we’ll have to see how well it fishes the rest of the year, but it sure is good now.

Entry By Rachel Sang

I have just completed my first year living in West Yellowstone, enduring perhaps the longest winter I have ever experienced. Now, I have to admit, there came a point this spring when I started to question if these trout out here were really worth it as the snow continued to fall and summer seemed but a far off dream. But, finally, summer has arrived and now I remember exactly why I live here.

On Saturday, my husband and I set out to the river, having decided to fish the Madison between the lakes, hoping to maybe avoid some of the weekend crowds down below. The flows had gone down so we crossed over, despite my hesitation, and headed to the water we wanted to fish. We got down to the spot we wanted to fish and both proceeded to catch a few nice rainbows. Quite to our enjoyment, we had all the water we wanted to ourselves and took our time making our way up the river.

Now the thing about fishing this time of year is how easily you can be distracted from your fishing by how beautiful everything is. With all the snow and rain we have had this year, the meadows are still green and there is still tons of snow in the mountains, making everything especially picturesque. As we made our way up, we came upon a Western Tanager that I admired for a while, his red head looking like someone had dunked him in a bucket of paint. Moments later, I looked up to see a young moose lazily munching on some willow across the river, not seeming at all concerned about us. Osprey hovered overhead and yet again I found myself in awe of what an amazing place this is.

Now, there is a particular spot between the lakes there that every time my husband and I go through we comment about what a great place it would be for a bear to live, making sure to make our presence known despite the fact that we have never seen any there. As we headed through, Brennan greeted any unseen bears with a hello, and low and behold a bear ran out in front of us! While we weren’t sure if it was a black or a grizzly, it was definitely the closest I have ever been to a bear while hiking and I found myself incredibly excited instead of terrified as I had always imagined I would be. 

After that, we continued to fish for a while, occasionally looking over our shoulders, in case our friend came back. As we made our way back, we both talked excitedly about our afternoon, trout, and bear sightings. Now, when I sit in my cabin this next winter lamenting the snow, I just have to remember afternoons like that and realize it is all worth it.

by Robert Parker

It’s snowing… again. So here I am at the shop as the gloves, hats and jackets go flying out the door and shop talk tends to focus more on the seemingly endless winter than the fishing. It’s obvious that a lot of people just aren’t getting out on the water this week, put off not only by the weather (despite that new G4 jacket) but even more so by the runoff flows we’re experiencing these days. Granted, to look at the slide below Quake Lake right now is to see an impressive act of nature - a turmoil of Class VI whitewater blasting through the canyon from the lake to the Madison River valley several hundred feet below. Stand near the bank and you can actually feel the power of the current in the trembling ground. It’s not the kind of river that looks conducive to fishing right now, but instead something that some adrenaline starved kayaker with a death (life?) wish might get excited about. So, fly anglers have stayed away from the Madison in droves, instead preferring to make the rounds of the shops to share in the communal depression that marks runoff time in Montana. Until last Sunday I had unfortunately fallen into that category myself. A bad idea.

Flashback to that last Sunday - pulling up to an empty parking lot on the Madison below Quake Lake. It’s just a matter of finding the right water I thought as I rigged up. On the walk downstream, as the dog contented herself with checking out rodent holes, I tried to maintain a positive attitude looking for just that right water, focusing on the edges and ignoring the roiling mess in the main channel. I was skeptical, just like everyone else. The fat brown on my third cast proved me wrong. The rainbow on the next did likewise.

A few hours and many fish later my buddy Brennan and I finally converged on a beautiful looking hole together. By that time the poor, shivering dog had been towelled off and was pulling guard duty, enjoying the warmth of the car. Ignoring the cold I was enjoying the biggest rainbow of the day putting up a tremendous fight in the current as Brennan arrived. As any good fishing buddy should I surrendered the hole to him for a try as I stepped back to watch. It wasn’t more than a couple minutes before he was into a fish. Impressive.

Overall, this was possibly one of the most productive days that I’ve had on the Madison. Mind you, not one of the most beautiful nor spiritually inspiring, but certainly one of the most fish sticking, down and dirty nymph chucking awesome days that I can remember. I could have easily stayed home and continued to be bummed about the weather and high flows. After all, those rivers aren’t looking too conducive to fishing, are they? But despite appearances I drug myself on out anyway and was rewarded on that murky Madison with a great many fine trout and no one around to share the day with except a good friend and a wet, shivering but happy dog. I was wet, shivering and happy, too. Who would have thought?