Monday June 4th: Lower Madison with Trish, Larry, Boze and Trico. Flows were low at around 1100 C.F.S. and the river is gin clear until you reach Cherry Creek, which was dumping in a good amount of dirty water. The hatch activity was very strong starting about 10 am with Caddis and PMD's. The PMD's were coming off in huge numbers and they were the big bananna's in a # 14 or even a # 12. The caddis are light colored and they were a # 14 and # 16. The Salmonfly hatch took place over the weekend but with the low flows fishing was marginal at best. The Big Bugs are up in the canyon right now and a couple people that I spoke with said the bugs were spotty at best as they came through the trap. Gauvin and Ashby floated it on Sunday and did fair in places.
The plan was to meet Larry and Trish at their house at 7 am because I had to be back in town for a 5:30 pm T-Ball game with my sons team the Tadpoles. Salmonflies were on our mind at the start of the day and when we arrived at the ramp at 7:45 there were a few bugs in the bushes and a rod case on the ramp that someone had left from the day before. For Jeremy it was fortunate that he had his name and phone number on the case so when I got back to town I called him and got his rod back to him. He had floated the Trap on Sunday and they hit the ramp in the dark and he left it behind. We put the rod in the truck and jumped into the boat for a quick run with the Salmonflies down to Cherry Creek. The low flows immediately made me question wether we would turn any fish because the water was not up near the banks and shaking the willows. We stuck with the Big Bugs to the Bridge Pilon and Larry hooked and lost a very nice brown on the rock slide above the pilon. Trish spooked another decent fish on the lower pockets of the slide and after we floated the bank to the lumber yard hole we decided to switch up and try matching the caddis and PMD's that were hatching instead. I tied on a # 12 Royal PMX trailed with a Bunny Dun for Larry and I gave Trish a # 14 Tan Parawulff trailed with a # 14 Copper John. We caught and landed a lot of small fish on both setups all the way to Doc's Channel. We pulled into see what was rising at Doc's and there were a bunch of splashy rises at the top of the channel. We got out of the boat and headed up into Doc's. There were three really nice brown trout rising in the slow water next to the rock pile and Larry made a dozen cast all around the fish until they moved up further towards the riffle. I changed up his bugs to a small # 16 Parachute Caddis and trailed it with a # 16 parachute PMD. Larry missed a couple of the big fish and landed a few smaller bows and a brown. The big fish got wise to us and Larry continued on fishing to the smaller fish rising steadily in the riffle. Larry gave up the rod to Trish and she caught a rainbow within ten minutes of casting. After landing the fish Trish wanted me to fish so I told them I would take a few cast. It took me two cast to land the first fish and after 7 or 8 cast I had two more. Both of them were talking about the amount of time it takes them to catch the same number of fish and that is why they hire me to take them fishing. After an hour or so at Doc's we ate some lunch and moved on downstream. After we ate lunch the Yellow Sallies started to hatch pretty well so I changed Trish up to a # 12 Yellow PMX with a copper john dropper. Larry got a Lime PMX and a parachute adams. I dropped anchor across from the TeePee Island to let Trish run her dropper through the deep slot in the middle of the river. She hooked and landed a couple of fish on the dropper and then Jamie B. came floating by with the new owners of his 18 year old Willie boat he sold them in the parking lot that morning. With 34 one hundred dollar bills in his pocket he was grinning from ear to ear. He had the husband on the oars for his rowing lesson and the guys wife was up front as Jamie fished from the rear. They were running nymph rigs and Jamie pimped a nice brown right from below our boat as they floated past. They floated another 100 yards and had another fish on so I told Trish and Larry we would float to Cherry Creek with our dry fly setups and then head back to the bridge to to a short nymph run back down to Cherry Creek. Trish hooked a few more fish on the Copper John and they both had some fish eat on the dry. Trish had a decent number of looks at the Yellow PMX which was good to see. When we hit the ramp Jamie had sent the new boat owners on their way down the river to Black's Ford and we gave him a ride back to his truck at Warm Springs. He gave me a couple of the #18 Bloomy's that was working well and we set off for another float with nymphs in hopes of catching a few good ones.
Putting a boat in at the bridge is a goat show because the BLM, or as I like to refer to the Bureau of Land Mismanagement had to put in a overpriced ramp that you slide your boat to the water rather than backing the trailer to the water. Some one is going to break their arm or leg using the ramp and I hope they take the BLM to task on the poor choice and design for the ramp. I rigged them both up with nymph setups after we got the boat to the water and the tuber traffic was starting to get a bit heavy. The sights of Bikini's does make for some good sightseeing but you never know where the tubes will end up. I tied on the Bloomy's trailed with a black and tan for Larry and Trish got a # 16 PMD Wonder trailed with a Bloomy's for her setup. I ran them about 6 feet from the balloon with one # 2 Split shot above the flies. Trish hooked a good one in the deep slot across from the old bridge pile that came off after a hard fight. We never saw the fish but it fought like one of the big fish do in the Madison. We floated a bit further and Trish Hooked into the fish of the day just before we hit the campground. It was the best brown I have seen this spring and Trish will be bragging about it and sending photos to her friends and family for a few weeks to come.
After hooking the beast we continued on catching small fish on a very regular basis until we hit the weed beds just above Cherry Creek. Trish hooked another big brown and we had a bit of trouble landing it but with some luck and a quick stab with the net we had it in the boat for her second big fish of the day. We gave Larry a little grief about the size of his fish versus hers and then we set off for the last quarter mile of the float.
Larry finally hooked a good one that gave him a good fight before coming unbuttoned. I was very glad that Larry hooked into a good one because he loves to fish dry flies and getting him to nymph is almost impossible. He has been a little more receptive to a nymph setup as the years go by but it has been a long process. I love to get em on dries whenever possible and nymphing doesn't appeal to me much either but some days you just have to bite the bullet and go under the balloon to get after the bigger fish. We hit the ramp and I headed off for the T-Ball game between the Tadpoles and the Sunbolts.
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