We have seen a few popping out below varney bridge in the last 2 days.  They are a little late on account of all of the cool weather we have been having.  There should be some good dry fly action to be had over the next few weeks.  Even on a mediocre dry fly day it can be a lot of fun to see a few fish crush a size 4 foam dry and catch your fill on droppers.  It can be chaos out there... Boats everywhere all chasing the dream.  The best time to catch it is real early and real late.

It is already happening on the big hole river and rock creek.  It is one of the most sought after hatches and among the hardest to hit.  People spend years trying to catch a good day of salmon fly fishing.  Hitting it right means seeing Montana trout rise to eat a size 4 dry fly, which is one of the coolest things in fly fishing.  Aquatic insect emergences are primarily a function of water temperature.  If you want to hit the hatch look at the snowpack and the weather.  They are probably going to start hatching when the water temperatures have been in the mid fifties for a sustained period.  On the Madison this will usually happen around the third or fourth week of June.  However, even if you come out during the hatch some days will be better than others.  If you put in a little time you are likely to find some pretty awesome dry fly action and some great nymphing in between. Check out the usgs stream flow site for a graph of Madison river water temps.  www.waterdata.usgs.gov/mt/nwis.

Here in Ennis Montana, runoff on a year with 100+ percent of normal snow fall creates the worst fishing conditions of the year on the upper Madison river.  However, you can always find somewhere good to fish.  The upper stretch of the Madison between Hebgan and Quake lakes can be about as good as it gets this time of year.  The runoff usually comes shortly after the upper Madison river opener on the third Saturday in May.  Consequently the fish are about as dumb as they will be all year on the upper river.  We also have a few tail waters in the area that never get too dirty to fish.  The Land of the Giants section of the Missouri River is at its best in the spring when many other Montana rivers like the Yellowstone or Jefferson are a waste of time.  We spent a lot of days this spring over on this section of the Missouri and found a ton of trophy trout.  If you are planning a spring trip and are afraid of runoff keep in mind that we can always find somewhere good to fish, we may just have to drive a little farther.

After our dreams come true and we get a massive snowpack like we had this winter, we usually have to suffer through some extremely high and dirty water well into June.  We had a good 2 weeks of really muddy conditions here on the upper Madison upstream from Ennis.  However the upper reaches near quake lake still remained relatively fishable and we were still able to catch a few on the lower Madison below Ennis lake through the peak of the snow melt.  We got this brown during the worst of it. As for a long runoff, we have had such a dry couple of months it is barely mid June and it looks like the dirty water may be gone for good.  The Yellowstone is dropping hard, the upper Madison looks downright green and the lower Madison has had good clarity for a week.  Both the upper and lower Madison are fishing really well and all of the people who should be here hauling them in seem to have pushed their plans back. It is a pretty good time to come to Ennis, find some great Madison river fishing and have it all to your self.  It is only going to get better from here on.