The Madison River in the Park has fostered good fishing in this week’s sun and almost record warmth, hopefully that will change today and for the last week of the season upcoming.

Flows today near West Yellowstone are 363 cfs at 0515, with the average for today 430 cfs; flows have settled after a rain and snow induced peak on the 20th of almost 700 cfs. 

We’ll open by restating a thought from last week - 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, though you’re reminded not to fish in the areas immediately up or downstream of the weir.

With the fish becoming a bit more aggressive this week, streamers have been very useful, particularly in the first and last two hours of the day - morning has been a bit better for us.  We know it’s not very sexy, but olive Woolly Buggers / Sparkle Buggers and SJ worms have been producing well, and we also brought a couple of nice fish to hand with white Zonkers yesterday afternoon. 

The nymph crowd is still doing well also, as are the soft hackle adherents.  We’ve even been swinging a small mayfly type soft hackle in tandem with a larger nymph (eg - bigger GRHE) and doing very well.

Finally - the dry fly crowd has still been playing with the mid to late afternoon BWO and small, dark caddis hatch that you see on the Firehole too - the caddis have persisted pretty darn well in the sun this past week. 

Crowds are down more than we expected - there’s still lots of great fishing to be done.

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 today.

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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;

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

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