Madison Valley Ranch

With winter upon us, our rods are put away and we find ourselves daydreaming about what was in 2011, and anxious for more great fishing in 2012.  There are some die hard fly fisherman still hitting the water, but the ice chunks and short days personally have me reflecting on 2011 instead of out on the water!  I thought I’d share some highlights of last season…

Consistent flows, prolific insect life, a nice balance of big, chunky wild trout with yearlings, mild temperatures, and overall, great fly fishing perfectly sums up our 2011 fishing season ~ it’s one that will go down in treasured fly fishing journals for years to come.

Spring was laced with corporate groups and couples that took advantage of the Channels Lodge and had the added bonus of stellar fishing! We got fabulous responses on the inspiration of Big Sky Country views during meetings.  And after the big winter, the trout gobbled up flies, loading up on calories and treating guests to feisty fights. 

With extraordinary high snowpack in June, it’s be safe to say all of SW MT was anxious about the impact this would have on the Rivers…I guess I’ve always been a bit skeptical of fishing in high waters.  But, I’m a complete convert now!  First of all, our guides did an outstanding job of finding calm waters amongst the high, swift currents in the middle of the River.  Guests kept returning to the Ranch with tales and photos of huge trout, as these monsters were all holed up on the banks, taking refuge from the currents.  Finally, I guess I never took the time to realize that high waters also create the most ideal conditions for breeding bugs, and thus set us up all summer long for fabulous feeding trout!

Struck by the shear numbers and beauty of the healthy fish caught during the summer months of 2011, it’s clear that high water has lasting positive effects. The Rivers were full of food ~ nymphs, emergers, salmon flies, mayflies, yellow sallies, spruce months ~ you name it, they were out there and the trout took full advantage. 

There was about a 3 week span this summer when I couldn’t have deciphered which flies were “working” because folks were catching trout on a gambit of bugs.  They seemed to anxiously attack anything put before them!  Walking around the Ranch on any given day, I’d also find myself in a swarm of caddis, mayflies, salmon flies, gnats, and yes, even mosquitoes.  What a spectacular array of insect life! 

The 2010 salmon fly hatch may even go down in history.  Typically, the hatch arrives at the end of June and after a flurry of days is gone with only shucks on the side of the banks reminding us of ‘what was…”  This year, folks caught trout on salmon fly imitations from the beginning of July well into August!  The naturals were out and about that long as well.  All it took was the right recipe from Mother Nature.

With this much food, it’s not surprising the real large trout were keyed in on expending energy on larger prey.  Pearl zonkers were the ticket to hooking onto the hogs!  In August, it felt like I was filling the fly box with zonkers daily!  The best evidence of this feeding frenzy was the photos of the regurgitated large minnows expelled by the big trout.  One of those ‘gross, but cool’ things!

The hoppers were out and about in August and September.  But, it wasn’t until September that they really started to move to the banks.  I suspect the entire landscape was so lush, that they didn’t need the cool, wetness of the river banks until then.  Combined with Indian summer type temperatures, folks were treated to some awesome action at the end of their lines this fall!  

2012 is already shaping up to be another healthy water year with La Nina forecasted to once again grip our winter weather patterns; we are predicted to have lots of snow and cooler weather. We know what this means…a big winter with hungry wild trout in the spring, wet conditions leading to awesome habitat for bug production, and healthy river flows all season long. Our incredible team of guides is already anxious to share their knowledge and indulge in your passion next season!  Come out and join us in 2012 for your own fun-filled adventure fishing for wild trout and enjoying Big Sky Country. J

Yellow sallies, pmds, mayflies, caddis, midges, AND salmon flies ~ oh my!  The Madison River is a walking advertisement for trout-rich insect life right now.  We are happily experiencing the benefits of an extraordinary snow pack that then lead to a big run off.  In fact, our area rivers’ flows are just coming down with the water clearing up ~ that’s more than 3 weeks behind a normal year! 

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks published a great article titled, Fish take advantage of high waters, sharing the following insight, “This type of big spring run off carries soil, nutrients, and heavy debris for miles, cutting new channels, reseeding cottonwood trees along its river banks and scouring stream bottom gravels providing high-quality spawning and rearing habitat for fish. 
As the water spreads out over the floodplains, it tends to warm and pick up nutrients, providing great growing conditions for everything in the aquatic system–algae, fish, other aquatic creatures and insects!” 
A lovely combination for summer and fall fishing…If you’ve been contemplating coming out to SW Montana this year, don’t delay!  We will continue to reap the benefits of this moisture all season long and would love for you to experience it for yourself.

Currently, a cdc baby caddis emerger is the ‘must have fly’ that our guides can’t get enough of.  Combining this with a brown girdle bug as the attractor, and it’s been a recipe for consistently catching wild trout!  Another go-to bug has been the bitch creek, a salmon fly nymph imitation that is stealing the show on the Madison River.  The naturals are fluttering about as well, but with the water still a little cloudy and such a plethora of insect life, nymphs and emergers have been a better bet so far.  But, that won’t last long!  The flows are drastically dropping and the visibility clearing day by day; soon enough there will be good dry fly and hopper action as the trout look up for their next meal. With this fabulous habitat, be ready for action at the end of your line in 2011!

Spring fishing is in full swing and we can’t ask for anything better ~ our wild trout are in a feeding frenzy after the long winter!  The brown girdle bug takes the cake for catching the most trout so far. This rubber legged stone fly nymph imitation seems irresistible.

Right on time, the famous “Mother’s Day” Caddis hatch has just popped off this weekend with the warmer temps. In fact, rainy and cloudy days are upon us and perfect for blue winged olives and March browns.  Let the spring dry fly fishing begin!

Our spring special is the perfect opportunity to sneak away to Montana and enjoy this epic fishing for yourself ~ What’s stopping you? Give me a call to join the action!

Spring fishing is in full swing and we can’t ask for anything better ~ our wild trout are in a feeding frenzy after the long winter!  The brown girdle bug takes the cake for catching the most trout so far.  This rubber legged stone fly nymph imitation seems irresistible.   

Right on time, the famous “Mother’s Day” caddis hatch has just popped off this weekend with the warmer temps.  In fact, rainy and cloudy days are upon us and perfect for blue winged olives and march browns.  Let the spring dry fly fishing begin! 

Our spring special is the perfect opportunity to sneak away to Montana and enjoy this epic fishing for yourself ~ What’s stopping you?  Give me a call to join the action. 

It was quite the year!  With consistent flows in the Madison River, as well as the Fish, Wildlife, and Park’s hard data of historically high trout numbers, our guets experienced first hand the thrill of the Madison River during the 2010 fly fishing season!  Overall, the cool spring, summer and mellow fall also kept all our area rivers in ideal shape for catching wild trout.

Spring fishing was not about the quantity of fish caught and released, but the quality.  Day after day, guests and guides delivered photos of colorful 18-20 inch brown and rainbow trout.  Not too mention some truly spectacular native Montana whitefish; these 20 inchers were fat and fiesty!  Two husbands celebrated Mother’s Day right by treating their wives to a fly fishing adventure over the weekend.  I only wish the famous spring caddis hatch would have come a couple days earlier for them to experience the quintessential Mother’s Day caddis hatch that the Madison River makes famous.

We took a break from fishing during the early June run-off, and the Ranch was trasformed into a magical wedding venue for two consecutive week-end weddings featuring over 100 guets per event.  Check out the photos on the website.

Like the July 4th Ennis fireworks, summer fishing hit with a bang.  After the longer than normal run off, the trout FEASTED in July!  Despite naturas fluttering about, it was tough throughout SW Montana to get a trout to slurp a dry fly in early-mid July.  Instead, they were going crazy for nymphs.  The red copper john stole the show, and became more valuable than a gold line during the Montana 1860s rush.  I wish I knew why the trout were kyed in on this fly, but I’ll be satisfied in just knowing it produed beautiful wild trout day after day.

I guess a ’shame on you’ is in order for us Montanans getting caught up in an esteemed publications’ (aka NY Times) report predicting an ‘epic hopper season’ in 2010.  Don’t get me wrong, plenty of trout aggressively attacked all kinds of hopper imitations.  The size 6 red CFO ant flew out of the fly box!  Our cooler August kept the hoppers from booming but the rivers flowing with perfect water temperatures.  On the flip side, more traditional dry flies such as #14 lime trudes and cripple caddis produced fabulous takes (and heart wrenching last minute denails) from July to September.

Especially around the Ranch, flying ants were prolific in August and September.  Dan Delekta’s cinnamon flying ant was a must-have pattern.  We also experienced a fabulous yellow sally hatch, where suprisingly, an elk hair caddis seemed to do the trick and entice trout to the surface.

Our season ended on the same high note as it started, but this Fall our guets experienced record numbers of trout caught.  One large return fall group proclaimed they caught their most fish ever, with one gentleman proudly noting he may have caught more fish in this trip than all his other fly fishing trips combined!

2011 is already setting up for a fantastic fly fishing season with great snowpack in early December!  With this great start to winter, we may not have another fishing report until spring :) 

The 2010 season was spectacular!  I look forward to posting a year-in-review fishing blog later in the month…In the meantime, I want to share Dan Larson’s report from Yellowstone National Park:

Here are a few photos from the last week of fishing the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park this year.

Perhaps the best year ever! 

The last couple of days were off the charts.  I netted 50 fish on Sunday, including 2 consecutive 22″ browns to finish the season off.  And, of course, on Friday I netted my second largest trout ever - Walter II.  26″ and an estimated 8 pounds of massive brown trout.  Unfortunately, no one was in earshot (or radio hook-up) to assist with pictures. so, you get the net photo of the fish hanging out the net.  Some of the underwater pics are of Walter II and another 23″ brown from the prior week.
 
Enjoy,
 
Dan Larson

The dry fly action has already kicked off, despite the fact that the rivers are still running a bit high and cloudy with run-off finishing up.  The salmon flies hatching near Ennis are a great sign that they should stick around for a couple more weeks, slowing moving up the River.  Plenty of comical stories of wild trout going for strike indicators tells us these trout are ready to feed and it’s always a fabulous sign that they are looking up!   The caddis are abundant, along with mayflies, pmds, and yellow sallies.  In fact, you can’t walk down the Channels trail behind the Ranch without your body being covered by caddis!  Of course a plethora of sub-surface nymphs and emerger imitations have been catching fantastic wild trout as well.  In particular, the cinnamon stone fly nymph (aka brown girdle bug) is flying out of the box.  This action will only strengthen in the next coming weeks as the water continues to clear up and slow down after our month of run off, giving the trout an opportunity to really feast in early July.  Can’t you just picture yourself with a bent rod, the line screaming through your reel with a feisty trout trying to break you off as you careful play them, and finally the pure excitement and exhilaration of bringing a wild trout to the net?  Yeah, me too ~ the fishing is awesome and we look forward to sharing it with you!

BIG, healthy wild trout and a healthy mountain snowpack sum up the Spring Fishing season at the Madison Valley Ranch.  When our first group of the season returned to the Ranch after fishing in some cold temperatures with “evidence” (photos, friends and guides simultaneously collaborating the pictures) of four of them each catching a 20 inch trout, I knew I was in for something I hadn’t seen before!

The theme continued throughout the spring with guests consistently catching 18 inch plus trout each day.  Unlike past years folks generally were not catching huge numbers of fish daily, but instead the trout caught were big with a lovely chunky girth to them.  By the look of the trout caught and the tales of fights that took folks into their backing, it was not a hard winter for the wild trout in our local waters ~ they clearly ate well and enjoyed feasting on big bugs this spring!

In fact, brown & black stone fly nymph imitations brought these big boys out of the winter doldrums.  The pearl zonker trailed by a red copper john also seemed to consistently result in big rainbows and browns!  Scott and I even made it out into the Channels right behind the Ranch for the Opening Saturday in May.  What a morning!  Scott caught (and I nervously helped net) the biggest rainbow trout either of us has ever caught.  Check out his photo on the wall at the Ranch. 

The dry fly action was sparse despite great March brown and caddis hatches.  While there were plenty of naturals around; wind or simple resistance to try a dry when such great results were happening sub-surface kept the dry fly imitations in the fly box.  Although, 2 days after the opening of the Channels section (3rd Saturday in May), Barb, still recovering from knee surgery, casted out a March brown imitation right behind the ranch and was reward with a nice take, bringing in a solid trout!

Our great spring fishing took place in a mix of warm spring days punctuated by repeated cool spring rain and snow showers.  While we are looking forward to the consistently warm and dry summer days, the spring storms filled our surrounding mountains with precious snowpack that will feed our Madison River all summer.  The late spring storms brought the snow pack up over 100% of normal.  We’ll take that, and enjoy it all summer!   Surprisingly, the Madison River still had great clarity over Memorial Day weekend as our run-off got started.  The next post may not be till the end of June, once run-off has ended and we are back fishing the amazing waters of SW Montana….

Midges, midges and more midges…the Madison River has been experiencing some awesome midge hatches and you can’t walk around town without hearing the buzz (literally at times ~ I had to swat a few away yesterday as I walked the property). With the days warming up and the sun moving higher in the sky, midge hatches are undoubtedly rising in magnitude.  Combined this with the low flows and clarity of the River in its pre-run off glory and it is clear why you should start thinking about shaking off the winter doldrums to hit the Madison River for some exciting early spring fishing!  Make sure your fly box is loaded with Zebra midges and Griffin’s Gnat.  Of course, there are still plenty of trout hunkered down in the deeper holes, so don’t leave home without a supply of bead head nymphs; princes, red squirrels and Delekta’s red Lil’ spankers are my personal go-to flies this time of year. 

The ice on the banks is finally melting enough to get access to some of our favorite fishing holes.  Although still a bit precarious, we’ve been braving the cold water temperatures to sneak in a couple afternoon hours for some great winter fishing! 

Not surprising, the trout are pretty easy to find this time of year.  We head to the deep holes where they’ve hunkered down for the winter season.  The brown girdle bug nymph has produced the most action by far!  Although trailing BH nymphs, such as a pheasant tail, red copper John, or lightening bug, has certainly caught a few wild trout as well.

The rainbows are beginning to brighten up as the spring spawning season approaches.  And the brown trout are striking the bigger size 6 or 8 nymphs. 

Midge hatches have also got the trout looking up in the warm afternoons.  Personally, I haven’t gone with a small midge imitation yet, but I’ve enjoyed watching the select wild trout come to the surface.

We are anxious for the longer days to continue, while the water keeps warming up, and the final ice melts away.  Come April, the fishing really kicks up!!