The Madison River in the Park is looking better every week - the crowded parking lot at the Barnes Holes yesterday afternoon confirms that lots of fisherman are out working for the big boys.

Flows today near West Yellowstone are 349 cfs (interestingly the exact same as last Friday) at 0515, with the average for today 435 cfs, and the 20% marker 357 cfs.  She’s crystal clear, low, and fishable.

Don’t be put off by the “discussion” you might hear about the fish weir on the Madison between the Highway 191 bridge and Baker’s Hole - fish are moving through in very good numbers.

Options continue to abound in terms of approach at this point.  We still favor, as do many, swinging soft hackles - we talked to a lot of guys on the water yesterday for an upcoming article we’re writing, and the great majority were producing fish during the sunny day with this approach.  Drab colored, small, mayfly and caddis flymphs seemed to be the order of the day. 

The streamer fans are banging away with success too - the reports yesterday were smaller, dark (black and olive more than dark brown) streamers were producing well.

Finally - the dry fly crowd has been kept busy by the mid to late afternoon BWO and small, dark caddis hatch that you see on the Firehole too - on these Indian Summer days we’ve seen decent hatches that have brought fish to the well presented (clean drifts) dry fly.

Anglers are reminded that with the crowds in this first few weeks of October we all need to play well together - there’s pleny of great water around.

The  Upper and Lower Madison river in Montana below the lakes continues to fish well, as does the stretch between the lakes - check our Madision River Reports (divided into Upper Madison and Lower Madison) at Best Fly Fishing Montana.com (this link will take you right to the report blog). 

The Upper and Lower Madison reports were updated yesterday.

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Flies to have in the box:

Dries:  Caddis - EHC, X Caddis, JN’s Deer Hair Caddis - tan, olive, black;  baetis - BWO, Blue Dun, Olive Sparkle Dun, Comparadun, Para-Adams; your midge package; there haven’t been many-  but we’d have a Red Quill pattern in the box too

Nymphs: Yuk Bug; San Juan Worm, red, brown, tan; PT; BHPT; BH Hares Ear, Copper John, olive; BH Prince; Lightning bugs, gold, silver, green/olive; soft hackles as per above.

Streamers:  Wooly buggers and Wooly worms, brown, yellow, olive, black; Sparkle buggers, same colors; Girdle bug; Zonkers, assorted; JJs

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