Category: Upper Madison River

An Epic Day on the Upper Madison…..

Today was a great day with my dear friends. Fun fishing and great stories and memories shared. The weather was a bit stormy and chilly but that did not impact the bite. We fished Salmon Stone Fly Nymphs and a variety of other nymphs too. The Delektable Black and Black and Orange Stoners worked well. There were tons of stoneflies under the rocks.

Dan

June 17

Fishing the past week has been excellent. Reports are trickling in of adult salmonflies between 8 Mile and Burnt Tree, so they should start to show up here around the shop within the week.  Nymphing is phenomenal (as usual), with big black stonefly patterns being the weapon of choice. Little nymphs are starting to work as well, so don’t be afraid to tie on an 18 lightning bug or Lil Spanker if things slow down a bit. Look for the soft slow water along the bank, perfect staging water for stoneflies, and faster riffles out in the middle as well. Dry fly action has been pretty darn good as well, with fish taking a variety of caddis patterns, as well as the big bugs. Don’t be afraid to throw a salmonfly dry before the hatch has showed up, as fish will key in on them in anticipation of the hatch. Indeed, dry flies can outfish nymphs right now, as evidenced last night when John and I went out after work. Almost immediately, John caught a slew of fish on dries, while I unproductively nymphed for a few hours. After getting spanked for a while, I finally switched to dries, and caught fish almost immediately. Right around 9, once the sun disappeared, the action REALLY turned on, with John landing a ~20” brown on a size 16 caddis out in fast water, a good consolation after missing a 24 incher about an hour earlier. All in all, the river is fishing amazingly, and should only get better over the next 2 weeks or so.

Daniel and John

June 18

I went out yesterday from windy to ruby on a nice slow float from 10 to 5:30. Early on was great, I stopped at all the buckets and took my time wade fishin’. Nice fat browns on the black girdle bug in the size 4 were ever so sneakily taken from behind the buckets. The big stonefly nymphs were really doing good for me. I went through the small bead head rotation also, but only got little dinks out of that, so I stayed with the big setup and continued down to Ruby feedin em what they wanted. Down by the ruby rocks I threw the dries at em again but they did not want mine I guess 🙂 A few rises there with a miss and some expurlatives, but no fish out there this time. I parked the boat at ruby and waited there for  John and Daniel to get off work so we could continue down to Mac for the evening. Dries. Holy Cow!

The winds picked up for a little while, after a lot of wind knots some line to line hang ups in the boat and a few crashes into gravel bars, we jumped out of the boat for some wade fishing. Dries are on! Small caddis patterns along with some larger flies like a #12 Royal Madame X were all getting strikes and catching fish. A nice fish ate a Dan’s Secret Salmon Fly but the large foamie dries were not producing a ton of fish. Two days of great fishing and great fun with boys left all of us satiated at least for another day.

Dan, John, and Daniel

Marty guided some friends of ours from The Trout Shop in Craig. They came to visit for a different fishing experience and to learn more about the Madison. It was a day of mixed conditions, with a pleasant morning, turning into stormy and windy, then sunny and warm, then more storms, then clearing, then … Well, you get the idea.

But despite the drastically changing weather, there were happy, hungry fish to be found. Fishing was better in the calmer periods and slow during the stormy times, as expected. And the changing weather also stifled any hatches, with no bugs to be seen, so we went down deep after them, having success with various nymphs. In the morning, Flashback Gray Delektable Hurless in size 6 and 8, and size 14 Silver Lightning Bugs worked best. In the afternoon, size 6 and 8 Black Pat’s Rubberlegs were the go-to fly. The river also showed little effect from run-off, with clear water for the majority of the float, and only stained water in some sections. In a word, the water conditions were perfect.

Oh, and yes, someone did catch a hog in honor of Mike, or so Nancy says.

Marty and Nancy

Last night, Dan Greene and I set out from our camp at Ruby Creek to give Dan a refresher
in fishing the Madison after his two week hiatus on the east coast. The water has come up just a bit and is starting to get a little murkier. Visibility is still over a foot though and the fishing well…great! Things started slow for us with a long hike up river, but picked up quickly once we wetted our flies. I missed a nice rainbow on an “undisclosed large dry” to start things off and got a dose of dry fly fever though the rise was tough, and I knew I wouldn’t be cured until I pinned one with a large dry. Eventually I hooked into a nice fish on my hunk of foam and continued to get action for a little while right before dark. I also caught a couple dropping a # 14 Delektable Lime Juice off my large dry.

Dan Greene abandoned the dries and started sinking nymphs in deeper runs. He caught a small brown and rainbow on a #4 Delektable Megaprince and #6 Delektable Gray Hurless. Right before dark, his action also picked up and yanked a few nice rainbows out of a deep run with his double stone rig. The pictures say it all! All in all, the evening worked out as planned. We both caught fish, and Dan settled back into Montana fishing. It was a good night.

John

Today was a very interesting day with different reports. Our friends Ross and Emmett,
especially Emmett scored heavily on a float from Lyons to Palisades. Emmett is doing really well learning to tie his own flies and is a young serious fly fisherman. We expect Ross will have him rowing someday soon. They sure have fun fishing together, father and son.  Emmett scored using the Delektable Brown Stoner, Pat’s Orange and Brown Rubberlegs, and a Hare’s Ear Nymph.

We had two other friends who don’t know the river and had a challenging day, we think most of the challenges go with the fact it was a sunny day and required special technique to find the line.

Nancy, Dan, and long time steelhead fishing friend Jamie, floated Palisades to McAtee in the afternoon and did work for their fish but caught a number of small to medium sized trout and missed some bigger ones. They tried almost everything with the best results on a Chubby with a Caddis behind it, a Chubby with a small nymph behind it (Tungsten Rainbow Warrior, Tungsten Prince, Delektable Lil’ Spanker in Blue). A Two nymph rig worked with Pat’s Brown Rubberlegs size 8 and smaller nymphs as a trailer. They also tried Streamers and Double Screamers but the sun stopped the action on streamers.

Nancy

It was a great day on the Madison with my husband Tryston and guide Dan Delekta.  We went from Windy Point to McAtee Bridge and the weather was cool with occasional sprinkles of rain and a light north wind.  I was using a brand new Brown Bear 4/5 Wt rod with a beautiful buck eyed burled wood handle that Dan Delekta made for me for Christmas along with a new olive Galvan open back reel, this was my first fishing trip with the new rod and it proved to be the best fly rod I’ve ever used! Thank you so much Dan for the most amazing and beautiful Christmas gift I’ve ever had! OK, on to the report!

The fish were very eager and continuously ate the #8 Delektable Mega Prince Copper Back throughout the day, I never had to change flies. The sizes were mainly larger fish of about 14” and up with only a few small fish, all were just as eager.  I also had a #10 Chubby Chernobyl in a royal color tied about 24” in front of the Mega Prince and this also got many hits later as it warmed up in the day. Big fun!

Tryston was fly fishing for the first time on this trip and had a great time! Dan was a great teacher being very patient and helped him learn tons of tricks and techniques that will keep him on the right track now.  He hooked a lot of fish, big and small throughout the day as well, but had trouble landing them.  He used mainly a double nymph rig with weights to bring the flies down to the bottom.  He had the best luck with the #8 Delektable Mega Prince Copper Back, #8 Gray Delektable Hurless Stone and the #8 Olive Delektable Hurless Stone.   I would say he’s officially hooked on fly fishing now!

Thank you again Dan and Nancy for this great day on the river that will live in our memories forever!

Jenn

We had a fun threesome in the raft: Bill, Nate, and Greg. Dad and his sons.

We love family trips!

It got pretty interesting with three casting out of the boat. This added to the learning experience for sure. Of course our better fishing was when we stopped to wade different sections.

The best results were with the Delektable Mega Princes and Hurless Stones, even better behind a Chubby.

The earlier part of the day was great catching and constant action. By mid afternoon it really slowed down. We had fun and lots of entertainment. Thanks Guys!

Marty

After numerous days of abuse from Dan about my ability to row and fish; we went out on the river to see what I could actually do. Marty joined us. He was a bit chilly early in the day and warmed up as the weather did. We were unsure about the weather the days prior when we were planning this day off together but we kept with our original plan, launch the boat at 11 am. We Floated from Ruby to Varney and planned to take off whenever we were done fishing. We started off the trip throwing streamers. The browns wanted the big meat Delektable brown/yellow double screamers, and the Delektable black double screamer. The fish weren’t overly aggressive to a fast moving Streamer, if you slowed it done with smaller movements that would induce a strike. Also the Skwallas were out and the Delektable Olive Hurless size 8 and the Delektable Olive mega prince size 8 caught a lot of fish. With the water being a light green color it made it easy to see the buckets against the shallower water. Don’t be afraid to fish the smaller stuff such as 16 Delektable root beer Serengolds, and some olive Shop Vacs for caddis.

Craig

Two days of father and daughter fishing on the upper Madison. Day one consisted of floating from Raynolds Pass Bridge to Pine Butte Creek. We decided to only fish the big water out in the middle of the river where the bank anglers were in fear of wading. The rainbows and browns did the rest. The flies that we used on the Upper River were Delektables: Flashback Megaprinces in size #4, #6, #8; Flashback Olive Megaprince in size #6 and #8 and a Delektable soft hackled red worm in size #12. The bank anglers were happy catching as we floated downstream. The BWO’s were emerging all day and we suspected the bank anglers were having big fun fishing the baetis hatch.

Day two started afloat from Palisades to McAtee Bridge. Since this section of the river is open to fishing out of the boat we decided to combine some streamer fishing out of the boat and some wading using nymphs.

The pictures tell the story. I rowed and Allie pounded BIG browns and rainbows on Delektable Double Screamers in Black/Olive and Olive. The nymphs were the same as day one on the upper river wade float.

Dan