Category: Fishing Tips

The Upper Madison River has been my year round fly fishing home for over 25 years.  The seasons and rhythms are ingrained into my soul.  I would like to break these seasons up into categories for our Fishing Reports.  The current season, as of May 4, 2008, is going from Winter conditions into Spring.  Our Winter fishing starts in November and can last into April.  During the November to April periods, stonefly nymphs in sizes 4 to 10 dominate, medium size nymphs in sizes 10 to 14 work and the ever present midge hatch in sizes 18 and 20—both dry and wet—work.     The Spring season begins with the first big stonefly hatch of the year–the skwalas, which can start at the end of March and last into April.  The BWO mayflies and the midges overlap the skwalas and continue into April or the first part of May.  The next mayflies to show up are the March Browns, which can start in April and continue into May.  Then there is the famous Mother’s Day Caddis Hatch.  Good luck finding the 3 to 5 day period that they come off.  The Mother’s Day Caddis Hatch can start from the end of April through the second week of May.  The Spring time fishing has always been my favorite—the first big hatches start, the weather is getting warmer, and water conditions are stable during March, April, and May.   The next best season for me is June and the first part of July.  Stonefly nymphs and dries can dominate in sizes 4 to 12, along with caddis dries and wets in sizes 8 to 16, and mayflies in sizes 12 to 16, depending on water flows and temperatures.  Streamers are especially good during high water periods.  This is the time of salmonflies, golden stones, caddis—from big to small, and mayflies—from big to medium.  This smorgasboard of  hatches continues until the middle to end of July, when the PMD mayflies, caddis, and nocturnal stones dominate.   Late summer brings tricos, small caddis, small PMDs, flying ants, and yes, my favorite late summer hatch—the wind blown hoppers.   

Fall fishing starts when Mother Nature decides to cool down.  September and the Fall BWOs take over.  Streamer fishing and BWOs dominate until October turns into Winter.     Then what I like to call the Winter Season starts, from November until April.  Stoneflies, nymphs—4 to 12, medium sized nymphs—10 to 14, and midges, wet and dry, dominate.   These seasons are a general outline and are subject to snowpack and weather conditions that change on a moments notice—welcome to Montana.  Also, with over 2000 different fly patterns in our shop, we will leave the fly selections to one’s own imagination. 

The snowfall of the 2007-2008 winter was the heaviest in Montana since 1997.  This resulted in the first High Water Year that has been experienced by the younger guides and the fly fishers who have taken up the sport in the last decade.  In this piece, I will talk about the different seasons that occur in Low Water Years and in High Water Years.

The Madison River has dropped now that the flushing flows are over with.  The warmer water temperatures that will come with the warmer weather, will cause increased bug activity–right on into the time the salmonflies and golden stones get started.  That’s when the fish really get their feedbags on.  There will be some March Browns and some caddis activity—especially the big caddis: size 8, with a very dark brown body and a dark brown spotted wing.  The big caddis will be all over the place.  They always precede the salmonfly hatch and golden stone hatch and continue through the salmonfly hatch.  The smaller caddis—size 14 and 16–will pop all the way through the salmonfly hatch too, and even some small caddis.

These hatches will come off even if the water rises and gets dirty from the runoff, because we’re going to experience still pretty big doses of snowmelt through June and into July.   But the bug hatches–they kind of overcede everything–and the fish start to eat hard and they start to look for all sorts of different fly patterns–including streamers.

This early season stuff is going to be huge—just monstrous—all these hatches.  What’s going to happen with the multiple days of temperatures into the seventies and eighties in the valley is that the hatches will start to come off as the water warms and then the warmer temperatures will start the snow melting and the cold water coming into the river will lower the water temperature again and slow down the hatches.  So the hatches in this High Water Year won’t be as prolific and won’t last as long during the day as they do in the Low Water Years.  There’s going to be a sprinkling of hatches throughout this season.  It’s not going to be one huge emergence, because the water temperature won’t allow it.

There’s going to be a smattering of bugs every day, which is every fly fisher’s dream.  It’s going to be like somebody is chummin’ the fish up for you, but they’re not feedin’ them.  They’re just getting them interested.  But the fish are not going to be able to gorge themselves.  The water temperature and the smaller number of bugs that are hatching just won’t allow it.  They’re just getting the fish interested, but there aren’t enough insects for the fish to gorge themselves.

Fish are like dogs.  A dog will eat until he’s gorged—sometimes until he throws up.   Well, fish are no different.  If they can eat and gorge, they will.  But because of mother nature, what’s going to happen with the snowmelt and the insects, it’s going to be a smattering  of a whole bunch of different flies throughout the early season that will last throughout the summer.  That’s gonna be the thing that’s gonna bring the fish to the surface a lot.  They’ll eat and be very opportunistic from the stuff that’s first emerging out of the rocks and the vegetation to stuff that’s caught in the film to stuff that’s layin’ eggs.  This will result in them hitting all the patterns.  That’s what goes on in a typical High Water Year.

In a Low Water Year, the water temperatures reach critical mass extremely quick and they don’t drop.  All the hatches come off and then there’s no hatches left when we get to the end of July or the first part of August.  But when you get colder water temperatures, that doesn’t happen.  So a High Water Year is so much better for the insects, so much better for the fish, I think.

We are now starting to get out of the winter season and into spring.  This winter has been one of the longest in memory.   Spring brings the morning midge fishing, which flows into the baetis or blue winged olive (BWO) hatch and that is very dependent on the amount of wind that is comin’ up.   If you don’t have any wind, the heat of the day brings on both hatches.  Then you’re going to get an overlap of March Browns and then we’ve got the Mother’s Day Caddis Hatch happening on all the rivers, which is triggered by water temperature.  Once you have water temperatures that reach around 50 degrees that triggers the Mother’s Day Caddis Hatch over a three or four day period on all the different rivers.  The other thing we’ve got going on now is the first stonefly hatch of the year—the Skwalas and they’re pretty much done now.  That wasn’t such a great hatch this year because of the cold temperatures and the winter weather through the spring.

Then the pumped up flows that will come with the snow melt will bring on the streamer fishing in force.   The fish will become more active with the flows and the increased water temperature and the fish will turn from being lethargic and not wanting to move very far for flies to the point where they’ll move several feet to eat things and go for streamers.  That season’s going to be pretty long this year with the augmented flows from the snowpack.  So the fish will be on the feed right through runoff and the runoff will be well into July this year.  It’s going to be a day by day thing as far as places that will be fishable.   A lot of the water conditions will depend on how cold it gets at night.  If we get cold temperatures at night that tends to put the runoff in check for awhile.  The way patterns have been we get a few days of warm weather and then it goes back to winter again and that stops the runoff.  Everything is very subject to change.  It’s a good/bad thing.  It’s good if you’re here, it’s bad if you’re not, when the fishing is hot.
Dan