The flows out of Hebgen are 3200 cfs. The following text comes from PPLs website. It was written on Spet 5th. " PPL Montana working to slow flows from Hebgen Dam PPL Montana plans to install a steel bulkhead Monday to slow flows from the damaged intake structure at...
A day off…
out of Hebgen: 851 cfs at Kirby: 959 cfs Two days ago I guided the wade stretch and we had one of the best days of dry fly fishing I have seen all season long. Spruce Moths and Spinners in the morning and then there were BWOs and PMDs all afternoon. Each...
out of Hebgen: 851 cfs
out of Hebgen: 851 cfs at Kirby: 959 cfs Our cool overnight temperatures have really helped the Madison stay in shape this summer. With the lack of rain, things are getting pretty dry, but yesterdays river temp at Ruby was 62 degrees. For mid August that is great. ...
Hopper Time
Out of Hebgen: 841 cfs At Kirby: 959 cfs Grasshopppers are out in abundance and on windy days you'll find them floating naturally in the middle of the river and along the banks. Fishing the middle of the river with long drifts and twitching the hopper from time to...
Oh the wind and rain…..
Out of Hebgen: 767 cfs At Kirby: 926 cfs The Madison continues to fish well and at this rate we will continue to have dry fly fishing for the rest of summer. Twitching hopppers has been fun and so has the spruce moth hatch. I saw Salmonflies at Pine Butte and near...
Summer time and the living easy…
The flow out of Hebgen is 1100 cfs, up from a few days ago at 860. The float stretch is crusing along at 1430 cfs which makes fishing dry flies from the boat very enjoyable. The fish are healthy and continue to eat both sub surface and above. I was on the river 19...
Float it dry…….because they’ll eat it.
Today was just one of those days. A day that will make you say "you should have been here yesterday". A day when most of fish in the river were looking up and willing to take a big dry flies on 2X and small dries on 3x. We are in full swing on the Madison and this...
Bugs, bugs and more BIG BUGS
With the flows out of Hebgen at 11oo CFS, the river has come into prime shape. Throughout the day I have seen Grey Drakes, PMDs, Goldens, Salmons, Yellow Sallies and Caddis. The river is thick with the Big Bugs from Ennis to Renolds Pass. This might be the biggest...
L to P
With rain showers looming through the Madison Valley, we cruised on down Reynold’s Pass and made the left turn towards Lyons Bridge. The foot hills and mountain meadows are beaming about a million different shades of green, luckily our recent afternoon rain showers...
Slide to Mac
My good buddy Dan Gordon is in town for the weekend and brought along his buddy from Junior High, Jason Jarvis. Jarvis is a Navy Pilot and has spent time over seas flying operations as the eye in the sky. We fished the last couple of days and have had pretty good...
Coming into shape….again.
The Madison River has dropped over the past 3 days allowing boats to now float under all the bridges on the upper river. The flow out of Hebgen is 1330 and the float stretch is 2260 as of this morning. Cabin and Beaver still have some color, but not enough to really...
PMDs, Flavs, Grey Drakes, Golden Stones….need I say more?
Even though Big Sky Anglers is not permitted to guide the Henry's Fork [this has changes since the writing of this post in 2008 - BSA], we love to take full advantage of the dry fly fishing on the Fork this time of the year. The Madison is a little off color and...
Mo River Brown Trout
I just got back from 7 days of guiding on the Missouri. The first trip was 4 days with Jin's Park's boys and the second trip was three days with Joe and Susan Lethert from Bozeman. Tomorrow I will post another more detailed report, but the...
Pine Butte to Palisades……oh ya!
Molly and I floated yesterday and did not wet a fly until we passed under Lyon's Bridge. The views in the Madison Valley are mind blowing right now. I had a several photos to post, but my camera is currently malfunctioning 'cause it hit the snow a few days ago at...
Madison & Missouri
I just got back a few days ago from the 5 days on the big river to the north. The Missouri (14,000 cfs) is huge and one day we floated at 15,900 cfs. We caught trout on long leaders, 13ft to the second bug, using a 3/0 split and one tung head worm. After dropping our...
The Mighty MO is Mighty again!
Jonathon and I just got back from 3 days of guiding and a couple days of fishing on a rain soaked Missouri River. The river swelled huge with all the rain and I haven't seen the Prickly Pear or the Dearborn at these levels for 10+ years. As of this morning, the...
a new season is upon us
74 degrees is one heck of a way to start MT's General Season Opener after a long winter endured. The weekend weather was nice to see, but it is bringing down the snow pack like a pack of wolves on a old tired bull elk in Lamar Valley. Luckily, we have Quake Lake to...
Flowing Green……for now.
The Madison below Hebgen Dam is flowing 942 cfs and 1160 at Kirby Ranch. These flows should sustain for a few more days depending on how warm it actually gets this weekend. We took a drive yesterday over Reynold's Pass and stopped at Reynolds bridge to have a look....
Up again.
I just got an email back from Lance Elias at PPL and he is bumping the flow tomorrow. Since they can't raise the river more than 10% of the previous days flow, I would expect to see 87 cfs more in the river sometime tomorrow afternoon. He said that there are no more...
Warming Up……maybe
The past few days here in West Yellowstone have been snowy followed by bits of sunshine. The rest of MT has rolled into Spring, but Mother Nature just won't allow us to keep with the Jones. This morning at 7 am it was 23 degrees......burrrrr. These cold overnight...