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.

September and October are two of my favorite months in southwest Montana. Cooling water temperatures make most of the rivers in our area good fishing options. The upper Madison, lower Madison and Jefferson all fished well this past month.  We had lots of options and saw a lot of the bigger fish moving for streamers. Hopper fishing was even working until just days ago.  With more nice days in the forecast for the first week of October there should be a little more hopper dropper action ahead.   We pulled some great brown and rainbow trout out of the upper Madison and the bigger fish should just get more and more aggressive as we move closer to the brown spawn at the end of October.  

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.