http://insideseam.com/ The Fishing Report en Copyright 2008 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:33:04 -0700 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Here are a few decent fish from both the Upper Madison and the Lower. The bugs are out in large numbers right now. We are seeing Caddis, PMD's, stoneflies, and a few brown drakes as well. Dropping rubber legs and stonefly nymphs behind boulders is always a good choice on the Upper. Dead-drifting buggers with a caddis emerger has proven to be a good sub-surface combo on the Lower. On top, the fish were not keying on the salmon flies, but they were hitting the caddis consistently. Yellowstone Report: Not quite ready. Plenty of bugs out but she is still running a little high and dirty. The water level is dropping and the clarity should continue to improve. The Stone will be happening soon. ]]> http://insideseam.com/#000158 http://insideseam.com/#000158 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:33:04 -0700 ]]> http://insideseam.com/upper_madison/#000156 http://insideseam.com/upper_madison/#000156 Upper Madison upper maddison Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:12:23 -0700 ]]> http://insideseam.com/#000154 http://insideseam.com/#000154 Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:12:17 -0700 He was using a San Juan Worm and dropping a cheese colored egg. Watching him land them was hilarious as the brown was rolling and wrapping himself with the line while the rainbow was jumping. Once he got them to shore he had a good mess on his hands but managed to release them unharmed. We fished for 2.5 hours and caught over 30 fish between the 2 of us (not including the whitefish and suckers). And last but certainly not least...the sucker. Not a bad afternoon for winter time in Montana. If you get out there anytime soon be sure to serve up the ham and eggs. ]]> http://insideseam.com/#000153 http://insideseam.com/#000153 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:51:17 -0700 It took a brown and orange lead-eye rubberlegged chunk of hardware off the bottom in a slow inside run. Things were looking good, but the afternoon sort of stalled at that point. We picked up a couple other browns on the strip, as did Mason and Bob in the other boat. In all fairness, the wind was ridiculous and there weren't too many great drifts over the last 4/5 of the float. I also had a little talk with this honker about a third of the way through: It turns out that a big white drift boat is the perfect camo for geese hunting on these rivers. This bird and his buddies were posing for another photo op, when I pulled out the ol' 870 wingmaster. I felt a little guilty shooting, but I suppose the education will serve the remainder well once they move out for the season. Finally, a word of warning, figure out how to split your next Chop House tab before the bill comes. We spent at least 30 min learning the hard way that the staff and credit cards don't get along.]]> http://insideseam.com/yellowstone/#000149 http://insideseam.com/yellowstone/#000149 Yellowstone Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:32:29 -0700 empty Warm Springs parking lot around 3:40 and fished into the dark below the highway bridge. Although the cloud cover didn't really deliver the way we'd hoped, we did manage to boat a few decent fish: Stripping streamers wasn't producing, but drifting this crayfish pattern got some fish to move: ]]> http://insideseam.com/lower_madison/#000145 http://insideseam.com/lower_madison/#000145 Lower Madison Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:46:19 -0700 ]]> http://insideseam.com/lower_madison/#000141 http://insideseam.com/lower_madison/#000141 Lower Madison Sun, 04 Nov 2007 08:50:41 -0700 Skunked on streamers, worms and small beads for a few hours between the bridge and Black's Ford yesterday. I heard a 2nd hand report that fish were hitting yellow streamers pretty good earlier in the week. Looks like some weather may come in tomorrow: ]]> http://insideseam.com/lower_madison/#000140 http://insideseam.com/lower_madison/#000140 Lower Madison Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:36:02 -0700 I only had about 90 min of light Friday evening, so I pulled streamers around boulders for a half mile below the Reynolds Pass bridge. I moved about a dozen fish, but didn't hook into anything verifiably noteworthy. There was one little brown that came shooting up through 4' of heavy water to swipe at my natural/yellow double bunny the instant it touched the water, so that was cool. I hit the river again around 11:00am on Saturday. The temp was in the mid 30's with periods of sun and relative calm between snow squalls. I started the morning fishing a sculpin and beadhead pheasant tail under a bobber. Twenty uneventful minutes later I spotted the first head. Even with ideal conditions it's not easy to spot risers and keep track of your fly in the riffles and turbulent slicks up there, but the flat light and snow were making it really tough. Still, if you watched carefully, there were fish sipping all over the place. I'm still not sure if they were targeting the few very small mayflies or the even smaller midges, but small to medium trout were pounding anything size 20 or smaller that maintained a dead drift for more than a few seconds. There were some larger trout porpoising in skinny water just inside the main current, but I was only able to get one take; the heavy rainbow pulled some line and pulled a few aerials before breaking me off. Anyway, the constant removal of hooks from lips had numbed my fingers, so I decided to switch back to a nymph rig and hope to twitch-n-drift my way into something more substantial. I've landed fish up to 24" in this stretch by high-sticking through the fast pocket water with super heavy flies and a handful of splitshot (although, I'm usually doing it in May or June w/ black rubberlegs). While I didn't land either, that method put me in contact with two really big trout on Saturday. Aside from the treacherous wading, the trouble with fishing big boulder strewn water is that you generally land only a fraction of the fish you stick. In any case, it's worth it to me just to hear my reel scream. Here are a few other photos from Saturday: ]]> http://insideseam.com/upper_madison/#000137 http://insideseam.com/upper_madison/#000137 Upper Madison Sun, 21 Oct 2007 13:32:27 -0700 all of you anxiously awaiting our every word, I'm truly sorry. I'm heading up to fish the Upper Madison and/or Henry's Fork in the snow this weekend. I may shoot a bird or two while I'm at it. ]]> http://insideseam.com/#000136 http://insideseam.com/#000136 Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:04:40 -0700 shop reports this morning, but since every shop has essentially the same report for every nearby river, I'll just sum it up here: the fishing is generally good; use small BWO dries on cloudy days, two-fly nymph rigs w/ big-ugly/beadhead when they're not rising, or swing for the fences by stripping streamers. Also, here's my photo-excuse for not fishing this weekend: ]]> http://insideseam.com/gallatin/#000135 http://insideseam.com/gallatin/#000135 Gallatin Lower Madison Upper Madison Yellowstone Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:13:08 -0700 Olympus 790SW for fishing photos, and I'm still figuring it out... She's flowing low and slow, so it may be a good idea to shorten up your floats and spend any extra time hunting heads. Also, for the cast 'n blast crowd, Anthony connected with a passing honker early and I jumped a blue-wing teal a bit later. ]]> http://insideseam.com/yellowstone/#000133 http://insideseam.com/yellowstone/#000133 Yellowstone Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:57:07 -0700 As far as regular fishing reports go, I can't really commit just yet. I'll do what I can (e.g. see updated Shop Reports), but I have many other fall responsibilities that require attention. Specifically, while I'm done chasing elk for the year... ...I drew a once-a-decade deer tag that I'd rather not eat... ...and pheasant season opens this Saturday: Anyway, thanks for your patience. In the future, I'll try not to neglect the trout - they deserve better.]]> http://insideseam.com/yellowstone/#000130 http://insideseam.com/yellowstone/#000130 Lower Madison Yellowstone Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:24:30 -0700 ...to start fishing the Lower Madi again. Sunday, September 9, 2007 River-Lower Madison Section-Warm Springs to Black's Ford Well Ags, it was a shotgun start around 9:00 AM at the Warm Springs put it. There were lots of guides out and it seemed the Lower was the spot. First part of the float yielded a nice strike on a crayfish. I attribute angler error to missing a nice 16-18 " rainbow. We couldn't get anything on the streamer in the upper section. Right before the bridge in the honey hole we pulled out a nice slot bow on a green bow river bugger. Toad alley below the bridge was tough but Bryan Grossenbacher's client pulled a toad brown out of there on a size 16 lightning bug. After the proverbial toad alley is the shoals on river left. I had some nice hopper action through there a couple weeks ago so I threw on a club sandwich and a slabby 16" bow hammered it. It was the best fight I have ever seen from a fish that size. That section is still pretty weedy and shallow so the "one fly" was the way to go. After that I put random nymph droppers off the hoppers and we picked holes to the take out yielding some nice double hook ups on little guys. My guy in the back missed a nice brown on his hopper a little after cherry creek. "Gotta let'em eat!" If I had a little more experience in the boat I think it would have been a really good day on the lower. When the sun is poppin get those hoppers out there and don't be afraid to fish the shallow water. Take care and NEVER SQUEEZE A FISH! -Meade ]]> http://insideseam.com/#000128 http://insideseam.com/#000128 Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:48:31 -0700 Saturday, September 8, 2007 River-Upper Madison Section-Varney Bridge to 8 Mile As I was driving down the road past burnt tree I saw a couple shuttles being run, but no cars at the Burnt Tree FAS. Got to 8 mile and only saw 3 trailers parked there - I thought I would be one of the few on the Varney down stretch... I was wrong. When I got to Varney you would have thought it was a trailer sale - there were probably 20 vehicles parked at that FAS... There were two guys in line behind me waiting to put-in. Got the boat in the water and started down past the bridge. Surprisingly, the fishing started off with a bang! The first fish was hooked right at the Bridge at Varney on a #8 Natural Zonker. A few more fish were taken on a prince dropper - but we hooked up quite a few times in corners and in back eddies stripping the Zonker out. I have pictures of some fish, but I dropped my digital camera in the river twice in the past 2 months so I have resorted to using a disposable (Ill get the pictures ASAP). Fish size averaged in the 14-16" range with the first fish being about 18 followed by a 17-18" rainbow and a brown that went 19. There were probably a couple fish pushing 20 that weren't landed. But after being told today that the Stone was blown out yesterday, looking around at some points during the day and seeing 6 boats coming from side channels made sense. IT WAS PACKED! I probably passed 8 boats within the first 2 hours and then they started showing up like cockroaches from the side channels... 15+ boats on the Varney to 8 Mile stretch is pushing it a little bit. Can't wait for the Jefferson and the Big Hole to re-open! -Nate Four Rivers Fishing Company ]]> http://insideseam.com/#000127 http://insideseam.com/#000127 Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:17:56 -0700