Madison River Spring Fishing

Spring Fishing Conditions on the Madison River

Spring fishing conditions are in full force on the Madison River.  The ice has broken up and the river is fishing well.  This time of year can produce some of the best fishing days that we see all year. The fish are hungry hand have more or less been left alone all winter. You can still see the remnants of the brutally cold winter that southwest Montana saw this year when you float past 6 foot tall walls of Ice on some of the Madison River banks.  Nevertheless, the water is warming up, the fish are looking healthy and feeding well. Fly fishing on the Madison has been good for nymphing and occasional action on dries and streamers. Most of the fish are still holding in the deeper slower runs but they are getting much more aggressive about eating a fly.

Lately some people have expressed concerns about run off and when to book their Madison River fishing trip.  We did have an exceptionally cold and snowy winter.  However,  It does not look like our spring runoff is likely to be that far off of what we normally see.  The snowpack in the Madison drainage is currently at 118% which great for summer fishing conditions but not necessarily anything that would cause me to think that the timing of our runoff conditions will be much different than any other year.  Late May and early June are normally when we get high dirty water from runoff on the Madison River.  We can always find somewhere to get into fish on the Madison but that is also a great time to fish the Missouri River below one of the dams.  By June 15th-20th we are normally looking for salmon flies on the Madison River.