Happy St. Patrick’s Day from the crew at Beartooth Flyfishing! All the residents of the Madison Valley have been blessed with some beautiful mild weather recently and the fishing has been excellent. If the Dry Fly game is what you want you can find that up high in the Wade Section with Midges, which have been very active on calmer days. But if you want numbers the Nymphing right now is tremendous. The flows on the Upper Madison currently stand at 864cfs at Kirby and 1,090cfs at Cameron.
Dan was able to get out on the river with our Shop Manager Ryan on St. Patrick’s Day and again with one of our guides Sean on Tuesday, March 21st. We also sent our first guide trip of 2024 out on the 21st as well. Each of these trips were blessed with Sunny Skies, Mild temps flirting with 60 degrees, and No “W”!! The fishing with Nymphs was simply amazing. Double Stonefly Rigs, or a Stone trailed by a smaller Pheasant Tail or Midge pattern was extremely popular with our Trout friends living in the River. Nice Trout were being hooked throughout the River. The banks, behind and to the sides of boulders, and in the heavy water with depth in the middle of the River as well. Rods were bent consistently throughout each of the trips and the Trout of the Madison are Fat, Healthy, and Happy!
We haven’t heard of any consistent Streamer reports recently. But a properly placed chunk of Bunny Fur could certainly pay dividends either dead drifted or stripped slowly.
Dries: Parachute Adams #18 – #22, Carlson’s Purple Craze #18 – #22, Griffith’s Gnat #18 – #20, Adams Midge Cluster #18 – #20.
Nymphs: Delektable FB Sparkle Kaboom Stone #6 – #10. Delektable Sparkle Kaboom Stone #6 – #10, Delektable Kaboom Stone #6 – #10, Delektable Mega Prince Std. FB #6 – #10, Delektable Mega Prince FB Olive #6 – #10, Delektable Lil’ Spanker Pheasant Tail #14 – #18, Delektable Tungsten Jig Spanker Pheasant Tail #16 – #18, Delektable Twinkle Black or Red #18, Delektable Big Spanker Warrior #16 – #18, Zebra Midge Black or Red #18, Duracell Black #16.
