Montana - Madison River
| Conditions: | 70-75 degrees Wind - 10-15 MPH, Sunny |
| Equipment: | 9ft, 5wt rod, 3x tippet |
| Flies: | Rubber Leg Stone Nymph, caddis emerger, Trude Dry |
| Trout: | 2 Mountain Whitefish, 8 Browns, 1 Rainbow - Pics |
Woke up had a great breakfast, packed our lunches and went off to meet our guide. The lodge reserved our guide from Blue Ribbon Flies. Our guide was newly hired Brian Wurley. Brian used to work for Madison River Fishing and has been guiding this part of Montana for about 12 years. Brian took us down to Lyons Bridge and got us ready to head out for the day. The Lyons Bridge boat launch is an interesting place in the morning. A lot of the guides and their patrons spend time talking about what happened the previous day. There is also a lot of funny story telling.
Brian started our drift off by anchoring the boat and giving us some instruction. It wasn’t long and we were off and fishing. My father-in-law, Al, was in the bow of the boat and me in the back. Initially we spent a lot of time tangling our lines but Brian was very patient with us and got us working together casting to the right spots on the river. Al was the first one to hook a fish. It was a nice 17″ Mountain Whitefish. Shortly after that he hooked another whitefish on a caddis emerger. After that he caught his first Rainbow on a Fly Rod. It was a lot of fun to be there for that one. We were nymphing and I was not having any success so Brian switched me over to a Trude dry fly with a caddis emerger. When I did that I started to catch some Browns. They were all at or under 12″ but fun to catch.
Overall it was a good day but I was expecting a bit more from the Madison. My hope is for a better day tomorrow.
