The Madison river is fishing really well right now.  The stone flies are active and the bulk of the bugs seem to be in the middle stretches of the upper Madison south of Ennis Montana.  I had some great action today with Tyler and John and we boated some nice trout.  There is some dry fly action out there to be had on big stonefly patterns.  Dry droppers are catching a few more fish and full wet fly rigs are hard to beat for numbers.  There are salmon flies, golden stones, yellow sallies, pmds and tons of caddis.  The fish on the Madison river are eating very well right now. 

Salmon flies are out on the upper Madison river south of Ennis Montana.  The bugs have just started hatching in the past few days as water temps have started hovering above 55 degrees through the nights.  Even though it is still early in the hatch fly fishing with salmon fly dry dropper rigs has been really good over the past 3 days.  It should only get better for awhile from here.  This is definitely one of the most exciting times to be on the river throwing giant foam salmon fly patterns to imitate cartoonishly large bugs.  The Madison gets a massive hatch most years so just being out there to see the bugs is fun on its own.  

We had a great morning yesterday throwing dry flies at big ones on the Land of the Giants.  John got this great brown on a dry dropper after seeing him rising.  

It's almost here...the Madison River salmon fly hatch.  The salmon fly hatches on the Henrys fork, Rock Creek and The Big Hole rivers have all but passed and now we are hoping to see a solid Madison River salmon fly hatch this year. The salmon flies are not out yet on the Madison river but lots of those big size 4 black and brown nymphs are making their way to the banks.  

The water on the river right now looks prefect...a little high, green in color but has plenty of clarity.  These conditions can make for great salmon fly fishing.  The high flow keeps the fish pushed to the banks where the bugs are and gives them little time to analyze those big orange foam dries.   Some green color to the water has the same effect. 

What causes the hatch and when will it happen?  The hatch is almost entirely triggered by water temperature.  I usually look for the water temperature to hold above 55 degrees for several nights.  The temperature graph below shows our current state on the Madison river at Varney Bridge.  You can follow this at http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mt/nwis/uv?site_no=06040000.  It looks like we are almost there so we should be seeing bugs soon.