We are finally seeing some hopper action on the Madison. The terrestrial bite was delayed a bit by a push of cooler than normal weather. In the past week our weather felt more like October than August.  The daytime highs plummeted to the low sixties and it rained almost every day.  The cloudy weather made for pretty good streamer fishing for those who were tough enough to fish in the rain.  We caught a lot of nice trout on the Madison river. The cooler days and nights dropped our water temps a lot, which has kept the big fish happy.  The biggest side effect of the rain was dirty water and rising fishing flows on some of the freestone rivers in the area.  The Yellowstone and Jefferson spiked and saw come muddy water but in the long run having a little more and cooler water will make for good fishing. 

We see a lot of wildlife on float trips.  I have never seen as many moose in a summer as I have this year.  The braids of the upper Madison river just south of Ennis Montana have been a hot spot for moose sightings.  This photo was taken on the Jefferson river, which is always a great place to see a moose because there are usually no other boats to scare them away.

We are starting to see more and more grass hoppers along the banks of the upper Madison river.  So far there are already more than I saw all of last year.  The fish are not really keyed in on them yet but as they see more hoppers in the water, the dry fly bite should get better.  For now, fishing has been pretty good on the Madison with streamers.  Most days we have been able to put a bunch of nice browns and bows in the boat.  The flows are great and having plenty of water in the Madison seems to have kept the fish from getting too shy to eat meat even in the sun.  The Yellowstone has been at a nice flow for awhile and should just get better and better on nocturnal stonefly and hopper patterns but with the Madison fishing well and not crowded it has been hard to leave. With good water levels on all of our rivers the crowds are spread out. Even a late start on the Madison near Ennis has not been a recipe for getting caught in a boat hatch.  In fact I have been hearing a lot of people say "I thought we would see more people than this...".

After the salmon flies and golden stones have passed on the upper Madison river south of Ennis Montana, we see a stone hatch without bugs.  The shucks are all over the rocks but there are none to be found in the air, on the water or in the bushes.  These golden stones hatch at night and usually come off thickest around the full moon in July and August. They are very active in the mornings, the evenings and throughout the night.  Rolling over rocks reveals the adults hiding from the sun.  Once exposed they race to the nearest rock in search of shade and they are fast.  Starting early in the morning with dry flies can be a lot of fun.  Before the sun breaches the mountain tops and the shadows leave the water, the fish seem to be poised in the shallows waiting for a stone or a Chernobyl ant to skitter by. This is a great hatch and usually gives us a bit of big dry fly action between the giant stone hatch and hopper season.  The Madison, Yellowstone and Jefferson all have the midnight stone hatch which makes early floats this time of year a great way to beat the heat and the crowds and catch some big fish.

The salmon flies and golden stones have long since moved through the upper Madison river and the weather around here has become downright hot.  Warm afternoons have made early starts the key to having a great day of fishing on the Madison.  Streamer fishing has been really good for the past couple of weeks and if you are willing to hit the river early there are a lot of lunkers out there to be had.  We are about a week into our nocturnal stonefly hatch and the fish seem to be  really active during the low light in the morning.  These stones hatch at night and hide in the shade beneath rocks and cut banks during the day.  The fish see a lot of them in the early and late hours when they are active. Hopper season is just around the corner but for now we're really enjoying seeing a lot of big fish get caught on a daily basis.

The salmon fly hatch is still going on the upper Madison river south of Ennis.  The bugs are moving up river but we still have  about a week of this hatch left to come.  We did very well floating down from Palisades fishing access to McAtee bridge yesterday evening.  The best fishing is often early or late but the flies are out all afternoon and dry fly action can be had all day.  Golden stones and yellow sallies are following the salmon flies up river.  There are plenty of caddis on all of the stretches of the Madison.  The nymph fishing has been great all over the upper Madison.  If you are all about numbers you can catch about as many as you want on nymph rigs right now.  As the giant stones fade, we should continue to see good dry fly fishing on the smaller dries like caddis and yellow sallies and the nymph fishing usually will be great throughout July.