The Madison River produced great fishing for fly anglers this past season.  If you ask most of The Madison River Guides in Ennis, Montana what they thought of the fishing, you would probably hear that it was the best dry fly/hopper seasons in years.  The fish seemed to be looking up exceptionally well this season.  On top of that, we saw more grasshoppers along The Madison River than I have seen in 10 years.  This was especially welcome after years of apparently declining grass hopper densities along the banks of the Madison River.

In 2018, we finally saw the completion of the Hebgen Dam repair project that was underway since the dam's failure on August 30th, 2008.  On that day, one of the four hydraulic gates on the dam failed sending nearly four times the normal outflow down the Madison River.  The flow was restrained after roughly a month of high water but the dam was still damaged.  During much of the subsequent repair period, the Madison River outflow from Hebgen dam came from the top of the lake over the spillway rather than middle of the lake.  The result was higher than average water temperatures on the Madison River and the necessity for spiking flows out of the dam to cool the river during hot summer months.  

While the river produced higher numbers of trout than ever, most Madison River fly fishing guides noted a decline in the quality of our dry fly fishing.  The warmer water and less consistent summer flows seemed to have changed the aquatic insect hatches and make the fish more interested in feeding subsurface.  Indeed, in 2018 when the Madison River finally received the cooler mid release water from below Hebgen Dam, the fish seemed to respond by rising to a dry fly.  Flows were more stable, the water cooler, the grass hoppers more prolific and  the combination produced one of the best dry fly seasons I have seen on the Madison.  The best part is that now that the dam is repaired, we can probably expect more great summer dry fly fishing this season!

Check out the Madison River section of this site for up to date Madison River Fishing Reports. I am aiming to keep this updated whenever there are significant changes in the fishing or river conditions and there should be updates almost daily.  There are also some really good resources there like streamflow graphs and links to NOAA  weather, the Snotel snowpack map and Hebgan lake level information.  

We are finally seeing those really warm days that kick off our spring runoff on the Madison River. The upper Madison is flowing really fast (creeping up on 4000 cubic feet per second) and the Lower Madison river is already over 4000 CFS.  The clarity on the upper river is pretty blown but there is still some good fishing to be had above the West Fork of the Madison if you know the soft spots on the banks that the fish get pushed into at these flows.  They can't see the fly as well but every fish in the river is pushed into smaller pockets of soft water near the banks. They just can't swim against the fast water in the middle of the river. If you know those spots, you can have some good action.  The water clarity on the Lower Madison River is holding out pretty well and float fishing should continue to be good down there for awhile.  The fish are still in the softer water but there is much more of that on the Lower Madison than the Upper Madison.  I am predicting that the runoff will peak by the end of this week as we are facing a lot of warm days and Thursday is looking to be 87 degrees in Ennis.  Worms are always my favorite pattens under these conditions and a lot of times it seems like you cant find one that is too big.  The big fish are pushed into soft water right now and with decreased clarity they are much easier to fool.  The warm weather also makes for some nice days on the water.  Conditions are far from perfect but the fish are still catchable if you fish the right water.  

The Power Worm.  This little guys is one of the best San Juan worm variations out there.

Spring fishing is underway on the Madison River.  The ice pack cleared some time ago and we are once again able to float and fish the Madison. We are already doing guided trips and the spring weather has been cool but relatively nice.  The river is fishing really well, which is to be expected during this time of year.  Standard tactics like slow nymphing and streamer fishing are effective and it would not surprise me a bit to see some Blue Winged Olive activity on the surface in the afternoons.  Having the entire river from Reynolds Pass to Ennis lake open to fishing is really nice this time of year.  It spreads anglers out and gives us some really awesome water to fish that we never had access to in the spring.  There are a few spawning fish out there but the rainbow spawn seems a little later this year.  

Our snowpack for the year is still building the high country but it looks like we are in really good shape.  All the major drainages in our area are at or above average snowpack levels.  That means good summer water conditions on all the rivers, fewer closures from warm water in July and August and anglers spread out over a lot of streams rather than piled into the Madison River.  On a low water year like the last several years, the Madison often becomes one of the only fisheries that has really good fishing in Southwest Montana.  That is the result of cooler water coming from Hebgan dam and the fast oxygenated nature of the river.  I always like a good water year because we have a lot more rivers that are fishing well to choose from and our home water on the Madison river is not nearly as crowded.

​Are we going to have a really bad runoff this year?  That could go either way and really just depends on the weather.  It could start slow with some warmer days and a few cooler ones in between resulting in mildly dirty and fishable conditions through the better part of the runoff.  However, if temperatures warm into the 80s for an extended period of time (usually in late May or early June), the River will get really high and dirty and the runoff will be shorter but much more extreme.

The 2017 Madison river and southwest Montana snowpack continues to build. The Yellowstone, Jefferson and Madison drainages all have snowpack levels that are pretty close to average or above average.  The snow pack in the Yellowstone river drainage is looking especially good at 126% of average.  This is good news for a river that suffered a serious mountain white fish kill and a full river closure in 2016, which was largely the result of abnormally low and hot water conditions in late summer.  

So far conditions are looking good for the 2017 fishing season.  The percentages listed on the map are the year to date percent of average snowpack.  Right now the Madison river drainage snowpack is right at average (100%).  If it gets hot and dry, this could decline and if it stays cool and we see more precipitation, it could increase.  So far it looks like we are on the right track.