Madison River Outfitters Fishing Report 08/20/2017

Photo by Chris Daniel

Upper Madison: The Madison still hasn't been all that consistent as of late. Some days we’ve been having great afternoons with terrestrials, other days not so much. Small hoppers, beetles and ants have been our most consistent patterns over the past few days. The best strategy for fishing terrestrials this time of year is to cover as much water as possible as well as possible. Focus on brushy banks and undercuts, but we’ve been hooking some nice fish on hoppers in some of the deeper mid river slicks as well. Nymphing continues to be consistent. We are still keeping our patterns pretty small (#18,20) as the fish down there are privy to our ways at this point in the season.

Hebgen/Quake: Hebgen is still slow to get going, but steadily getting better. Callibaetis and flying ants have still been showing up strong in the Madison Arm. Quake continues to fish really well. The fish have not been overly-selective as we have been catching them on most Callibaetis and caddis patterns. This is a fun lake to fish and can be a nice change of scenery from Hebgen.

Gallatin: Most of the hatches have worked their way through at this point. Your best bets for the foreseeable future will be terrestrial and attractor patterns.

NE Corner: Terrestrials are still the ticket here. It’s getting to be the time of year up there where the fish are starting to be a little more selective. A good drift with some lighter tippet can be the difference in your success. If you're getting refusals, try downsizing your patterns or dropping a tungsten head nymph off the back.

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