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...".
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