Better late than never: Salmonfly hatch makes appearance on Madison River
CAMERON — Erik Carr likes his fishing reports early and his eggs over easy, with a side of hash browns.
“We get the fishing guides in at the counter,” said Carr, owner of Main Street Overeasy, while fly-fishing the Madison River on Tuesday. “We get the good news and the bad news. We get the skinny.”
A variety of maps detailing the area’s waters are always on hand and Carr said word around the shop on Tuesday was that the fish were rising to salmonflies and golden stones on the upper Madison River.
That’s all the news Carr needed to hear to break out of town and don his waders for the afternoon. He said big salmonfly patterns with a trailing caddis emerger were the ticket.
“I heard it just started happening in the last few days,” Carr said. “They are really starting to key on (the salmonfly).”
It’s come as something of a surprise that the salmonfly hatch has been fishable at all on local waters this year. Many anglers were prepared to wait until late July for the flows, burgeoned by this year’s unusually-high snowpack, to finally recede.
With the Yellowstone at Livingston still surging at more than 14,000 cubic feet per second above average and the Gallatin at Logan still more than 3,000cfs above average, the Madison somehow pulled it off.
Flows at Kirby Ranch near Cameron began to drop steadily on July 7. As of Wednesday morning, water levels at the gauging station were just above 2,000cfs. While still pushing historic levels, water clarity has been improving on a daily basis and the fish are on the bite.
Reports out of Ennis were that the hatch erupted this year with lots of bugs coming off up and down the upper Madison at once. In addition to salmonflies, a cornucopia of caddis, mayflies and other stoneflies are on the menu.
“When I first got here, my wife said the hatch must be on because there were swallows all over the water,” said Bruce Allen of Bozeman while fishing near McAtee Bridge. “The river is absolutely clearing up. It seems like everything is hatching all at once.”
While water clarity is improving rapidly, anglers will find better options for rising fish the further upstream they travel. Flows through Ennis were still murky on Tuesday with visibility round McAtee Bridge at about two feet and flows near Three Dollar Bridge and Raynolds Pass even clearer.
Anglers hoping to take a stab at this year’s salmonfly hatch on the Madison River should head to the water as quickly as possible. As of Wednesday, confirmed reports of bugs as high as Lyons Bridge had surfaced. But with the big bugs coming off rapidly upriver, the hatch may be short lived.
Pound the bankside eddies with big stonefly patterns like Cat Pukes, Flutter Bugs and Stimulators. Subsurface patterns like Kauffman’s Stoneflies, Girdle Bugs and Yuk Bugs in sizes #2-#6 will draw strikes dead drifted along the banks below an indicator.
Carr, who fished near McAtee Bridge for several hours on Tuesday, said the fish were looking up at his fly.
“I got a couple of browns,” Carr said. “They came up and smacked it.”
Related posts:
- Making sense of stoneflies: Annual salmonfly hatch keeps anglers guessing
- Salmonfly watch: Part deux
- Fishing report: Spring midge hatch on the Madison River has trout looking up
- Year of the worm? San Juan strikes first trout of season on Lower Madison River
- Help wanted: Madison River crews need volunteers for annual clean up and BBQ
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