Madison River Report 8.4.16

I am lucky enough to find myself throwing dries on the Madison River every year since the day I picked up a fly rod. This year, I fished it in early August. This isn't my first choice for the time of year to fish the Madison, but I am not a complainer. I hit the water early around 8 a.m. and fished until 11. There were a few caddis fluttering around, but the biggest hatch was the Epeorus. This isn't to say that there were tons of Epeorus around, just enough to keep the trout interested.

I tied on a #14 brown X-Caddis with a trailing #16 Brown Iris Caddis just as an experiment. In the 3 hours of fishing, I missed roughly 10 fish, but none of any size. The biggest was a beautiful 15" Brown trout I fooled on the Iris Caddis. It wasn't until the end of the morning that I noticed all of the bigger fish were staging up against banks in the shade to avoid the 80 degree sun.

I had the opportunity to hit the river in the evening expecting a great evening hatch, and some more cooperative trout. Instead, I found that the bite had not changed from the morning. There were a few feeding trout around 9:30 p.m., but not what I was hoping for. I ended up landing 2 browns on a #14 brown elk hair caddis, and a #14 Brown Iris Caddis.

Want to try out some new flies? Check out our selection here

After hearing reports from other people, that day seemed to just be a slower day. I didn't hear of anyone catching more than a few fish. Overall, I was happy to be on the river with my family, and cast to healthy trout.