Submitted by Galloup's Slide Inn on
Madison River Fishing Report for July 17th, 2017
Dam: 1,180 cfs
Kirby: 1,500 cfs
Varney: 1,810 cfs
Madison River fishing report. The Upper Madison is still fishing well on all fronts this July, and colder nighttime temps have started to bring the river down a few degrees first thing in the morning. We are still looking at highs in the mid to upper eighties for the rest of the week, and water temps continue to hover between 62 and 70 degrees at the Kirby gauge.
Dry fly fishing has still been most productive in the morning and then again in the evening, but it will continue to fish well into the afternoon if you get some cloud cover. We still have plenty of caddis, Eperous spinners, and yellow sallies, and have been seeing nocturnal stones hatching from a few miles downstream from Palisades all the way down to Ennis. Some of our better patterns recently have been Bloom’s Para Caddis, X-Caddis, Butch Caddis, Rusty Spinners, #16-18 yellow and royal stimulators, #10-12 Chubby Chernobyls, Purple Hazes, and Para Wulffs. One thing to keep in mind is that when the sun gets high and water temperatures begin to rise you will notice a change in the size of fish willing to rise…and by that we mean a lot more dinks poking at your fly. If you keep at it, you will definitely get your shot at some larger trout but you’ll have to work your way around the little guys in the afternoon to get to them. However, the nymph bite has still been been good throughout the day and we have been seeing some really nice fish willing to eat subsurface lately. Some of our more productive nymph patterns this week have been #16-18 lightning bugs, shop vacs, $3 Dips, PT Green Machines, partridge and hare’s ear, AKA Prince, hydropsyche caddis larva, natural hare’s ears, #8-10 Pat’s Rubber Legs, and flashback PT’s.
Streamer fishing has actually been really good early in the morning, but seems to die off somewhere between 8:00 – 8:30 am, unless you are lucky enough to get some cloud cover or an afternoon thunderstorm. We haven’t been doing very well on larger patterns, but baitfish and sculpin imitations have been bringing some great browns to the fly. Mini Loop Sculpins, Trevor’s Sculpins, Shielas, CH Barely Legals, and Wooly Sculpins have all been good options lately, and we’ve been moving them at 8″-12″ strips with good success.
Be sure to keep checking back for another Madison River fishing report from the Slide Inn.
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