Tuesday May 8th: Upper Madison River with Larry. Flows were 945 C.F.S. and the weather was warm and sunny with a high around 80 Degrees. The weather prior to this date had been cool with some rain and snow storms that locked up the runoff for a few days and cleared the area rivers for some more fishing. The Yellowstone was even fishable but it had come up about 1500 C.F.S. overnight and I made the decision to head to the upper rather than risk driving over to the Yellowstone and getting blown out.
I arrived at Larry's rental house and picked him up around 9 am. We loaded up both Trico and Bozeman and headed for Ennis to see what trouble we could stir up for the day. I was considering floating from McAtte to Varney and fishing a dry dropper rig but we decided on doing a shorter float from 8 Mile to Ennis and then heading below the Ennis Dam to see if the caddis activity would be strong in the evening. The water clarity was decent when we got to Ennis and the river had a green tint to it with about two and half feet of visibility. When we arrived at the boat ramp there were two other boats putting in and Dave Mckee was already in the water below us. I rigged two nymph rods and a dry fly rod with a dropper in case we got lucky and saw a few rising fish. On one nymph rod I tied on a San Juan Worm trailed with a PT and on the other I rigged a Oil Can Bugger with a soft mangy caddis olive on the other. We started off with the lighter nymph rig and caught a small rainbow right out of the gate. I floated down the side channel and ran into Dave and his client who were rigging up a rod. We had a quick chat about Walleye fishing and how we both got the invite from Benedickt but we were both obviously guiding instead of heading to Canyon Ferry with the Deuce. I jumped out and walked Larry down the river as he plied the deeper buckets for fish. The San Juan was taking a few whitefish and an occasional trout. As we continued walking the boat down the river there were a considerable amount of March Browns hatching along with some sporadic caddis. I switched Larry's setup to a Black Conehead Bugger trailed with a # 12 Peacock Anatomay to imitate the March Brown nymphs. The Black Conehead has produced well for me as well in the greenish water on the Upper. Right off the bat Larry started hooking up on the Anatomay and he landed several more fish before we hit the Burnt Tree access. I kept my eye out for rising fish and we did not see a single head poke up all day long. As we approached the deep hole below Burnt Tree I told Larry to get ready and he placed a perfect cast in between the submerged rocks on the left hand side of the river and came tight to a very nice trout that ran out into the deeper part of the run. I pulled over and the fish popped off of Larry's fly. We were both disappointed and I decided to walk the boat back up to the top of the run for Larry to run a few more cast through. He hooked and landed a nice whitefish on the first good drift and then he hooked another nice brown trout that we got almost up to the boat before he came unbuttoned.
We ate some lunch and then headed back down the river fishing nymphs all the way to the Rapids below the Happy Angler house. We moved a few more fish on the nymphs but the fishing slowed as the sun rose higher in the sky. Larry loves to fish dry flies so I tied on a trude and a lite brite caddis dropper so that he could fish it out to the take out. He did hook two small fish on the trude before we hit the ramp and we loaded up the boat and headed for the dam. The fishing was fair for the day and it appears the post spawn rainbows we caught 10 days earlier had started to spread back out and the fish were not in the deeper buckets like they had been. All in all the fishing was pretty good and I got Larry to nymph fish for most of the day. He actually did better nymphing than he does with a dry because he was not so excited all the time and he concentrated on his surroundings more than he does with a dry fly.
"Bear Trap Canyon Put In"
We headed below the dam with hopes of seeing swarms of caddis and rising fish but when we pulled up to the dam there were only a few caddis out and the prospects of finding rising fish faded fast. Lawerence Stumke was packing away his gear when we got to the first walking bridge and they had been there all day fishing. They had some decent fishing with nymph rigs and they caught one very rewarding rainbow on a caddis that was sitting just under the surface feeding when they switched over and caught him. The sun was starting to set in the canyon and the caddis were starting to hatch a bit stronger but it was not shaping up to be an all out blizzard hatch and we had already put in a full day. We drove down to the put in and saw a couple fish rise across the river but there were not enough to get us motivated to go after them. We decide to drive back down to the Lower to see if the bugs were hatching any better and if not we would call it a day. As we drove along the lake there were a good number of the large midges hatching and there were some fish rising fairly regularly in river arm of the lake. As we got around to the Koshiaby Beach access there was a huge pod of Chubs rising to the midges and I jokingly ask Larry if he wanted to fish for them. He looked at me like I was a dumb ass and we headed for the Lower. When we arrived at the Lower there were not many bugs and we decided to head home and get some rest for the next day of fishing. I was pretty tired when I got home but not as tired as Larry was. He told me the next day that he fell asleep on the couch when he got home and woke up three hours later with all his fishing clothes still on. It was a fun day and I am glad that we did not have to trek to the Bighorn to fish while he is here.
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