Scenic Float turns into a great day of Fishing!

"Julie Nelson with one of her sister's brown trout"

Wednesday May 23rd: Upper Madison with Jen and Julie. Flows were low at around 760 C.F.S. at Kirby Ranch. The Upper just opened the weekend before and the West Fork was running clear from the cold snowy weather during the first part of the week. Clarity was well over three feet with just a slight tint of green. The weather was partly cloudy with a few snow flurries throughout the day and temps in the low 60's.

Julie Nelson contacted me earlier in the spring and she wanted to take a float trip while she was out visiting her sister Jen. Jen lives here in Bozeman and is a good friend of Amy's from Vermont. They both moved here after attending college and after visiting they both decided to stay and call Bozeman home. Julie had driven up the Madison Valley and loved the scenery so she had requested to float the Madison river and see the Valley from a different perspective. I told them that the fishing in Mid May would probably be a questionable option as we would be in our runoff season and most of the rivers would be high and dirty. Julie was not concerned about the fishing and seeing the sights was more important than getting in some fishing. Julie told me that she did not want to fish but her sister may want to learn a little bit about fishing and that catching fish was not important for her or her sister. As luck would have it we had some cold weather that cleared up many of the area rivers and the Madison was in good shape for catching some fish.

I picked them up at Jen's house around 9 am and we headed for the Upper portion of the Madison river, where the scenery is great. We made a quick stop at Dan and Nancy Delekta's Beartooth Fly Shop to get Jen a license and arrange for the shuttle from Lyons to Ruby Creek. Dan and Nancy were in Bozeman for the day but the rest of the friendly staff greeted us and gave us a current report from the previous day. The fishing was really good for a few brave soles that ventured out into the snow and cold on Tuesday and they did very well stripping streamers off the banks. The Upper had just opened on Saturday and the fish were in great shape. We arrived at Lyons by 11 am and there were only a couple of other trailers in the parking lot. I put all the gear into the boat and gave Jen a quick lesson on the finer points of casting a fly rod. After parking the truck we loaded up in the boat and shoved off. I dropped anchor just below the bridge to give Jen a few more instructions about getting a drift and how to present the fly to the fish. Jen was a quick learner and she picked up mending, casting and stripping the line right out of the gate. I had her rigged with a short heavy leader with a Bow river bugger and a Copper John with no additional weight. We started off fishing some of the deeper slots and pockets in the middle of the river and she managed to land one nice willow branch and had one other fish on in the first hour of the float. It was becoming apparent that the fish were not holding in the middle of the river as they do during the heat of the summer and the heavy fishing traffic that forces them off the banks. I made a quick fly change to a Copper Zonker trailed with a Pheasant tail nymph and we moved into the bank to see if the fish were holding on the edges. As we approached the Highway for the first time Jen hooked up with a nice brown and we landed her first fish on a fly rod. She was very excited and we all had a great laugh as the fish came to the net. We continued our float down the river and I pulled the boat into the slot below the Sun Ranch bridge and Jen hooked three nice fish that all took advantage of her inexperience. After spending some time in the slot we pulled up anchor and headed for the island for a bite to each and a break from waving the fly rod around.

"Jen and Julie at the Wolf Creek Bridge"

After lunch we set back out to catch some more fish and we started to see a good number of March Browns on the surface mixed in with some small # 20 Blue Winged Olives. The wind was a bit blustery but I decided to see if we could entice a few fish up to a # 12 Royal Wulff trailed with a # 14 Peacock Anatomay. The breeze was a little bit to stiff for Jen to make a good presentation to the bank and after ten minutes of cast landing upstream of the boat I pulled over and let her take a shot at a deep slot across from the Lodge above Windy Point. Jen had a few really good drifts through the slot and she hooked up with a nice brown trout that put up a strong run and came unbuttoned from her beadhead. I changed up the flies back to a # 8 Copper Zonker and trailed it with a # 14 Peacock Anatomay. I pulled up the Anchor and we made our way to the Wolf Creek Bridge. Jen hooked and landed one very nice Rainbow of about 16 inches and another brown that was close to the same size. Both fish were sitting tight to the bank in a slow slot that was only a foot or so deep.

"Jen with a nice Madison River Rainbow"

With the closure in place the fish had not had any pressure and were very secure sitting tight to the banks. Jen broke off her flies just above the bridge and I dropped anchor downstream of the bridge to take a photo of the girls and retie on her flies. We continued on our float and hooked a couple more nice fish that were a bit more experienced than Jen. We arrived at the Palisades boat ramp and a threatening snow squall was working it's way up the river. Jen hooked and landed another nice brown downstream of the Palisades which was a great way to end the day. With the threat of sitting in snow, wind and cold on the horizon we made a push for the boat ramp at Ruby Creek to get off before the storm hit us on the river. It was a fine day of fishing and we pretty much had the river to ourselves, which is rare for the Upper Madison.