Madison River Outfitters Fishing Report 7/9/2019
Montana
Upper Madison: It’s salmonfly time on the Madison. If you can time out this hatch and find fish that haven’t already gorged themselves on the adults and nymphs, you can be in for a very memorable day of fishing. As of yesterday afternoon, the big bugs are coming off strongest right around Windy point and they should be working their way into the wade section any day now. If chasing after salmonflies isn’t your thing, there’s still good news for you. The caddis fishing has been fantastic the past week or so and should only continue to get better. Look for them to start coming off sometime in the late morning to early afternoon and continue into the evening hours. There has been a fair number of PMD’s coming off, and if you find yourself on the river during some of these afternoon storms we have been getting almost daily, you can expect to have a good stretch of fishing. In addition to all of this, be on the lookout for golden stones and Yellow Sallies. For nymphs, it seems the rubber legs bite has slowed considerably in the float section but it’s still worth fishing in the wade section. Other smaller mayfly and caddis nymphs have been working well also.
Flies: #8 Salmonfly Hotcake, #10 Henry’s Fork Stone, #10 Half-down Golden, #6-14 Chubby Chernobyl, #14 Full-tilt Sally, #14-16 X-Caddis, #16 PMD Sparkle Dun, #16 D.O.A. PMD Cripple, #16 Ausable Parawulff, #8-10 Sili-legs, #12-14 Biot Golden Stone, #14-16 Lake Prince, #14-16 Red Neck, #16 Green/Black Lightning Bug, #16 Guide Dip/$3 Dip, #18-18 Krystal Dip, #16-18 Soft Hackle Hare’s Ear
Hebgen: Fishing on Hebgen has been good albeit a little inconsistent. We have seen some good callibaetis emergences but it is definitely not an everyday occurrence yet. Nymphing with callibaetis and/or chironomids is still the best way to consistently get fish to the boat. Stripping some leeches and buggers is always a good option as well.
Flies: #12 Sno Cone, #14-16 Turkey Callibaetis, #16 Callibaetis Parachute, #10 Simi Seal Leech, #8 Jig Bugger
Gallatin: The water in the park stretch has shaped up really nicely and is now in really fine fishing condition. Attractor dries and maybe some caddis should be about all you need in this stretch for the time being. The “Chili Dog” seemed to be the ticket in there during the past week. Below the Taylor Fork, the water is still slightly high and off color but definitely fishable. Look for salmonflies to be somewhere south of Big Sky working their way up.
Yellowstone National Park
Firehole: Some of the rain and cooler temps we got this past week helped water temps in the Firehole hang in just a little longer, but it’s probably now reached the point where we will refrain from fishing again until sometime in September. If you are intent on fishing here, fish somewhere upstream of Midway Geyser Basin and try to get in early and be off the water sometime before 11 am.
NE Corner: We have been eagerly keeping an eye on the stream gauge for the Lamar as the flows steadily and consistently drop each day. I would say Slough could be fishable within the next few days with Lamar and Soda Butte hopefully not too far behind. Fair warning that heading up there at the moment is a bit of a gamble.
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Tom Forsberg
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