Though we still haven't seen a ton in the way of super warm temps, spring has slowly come on the scene - grass is greening up, leaves are starting to poke out and snow storms have been replaced by rain showers (at least below 7000 ft). Runoff is certainly underway and while the Yellowstone, Gallatin, Jefferson, Big Hole and numerous smaller tribs are blown out, there are still some great options holding out.
The Madison, both upper and lower, has been fishing fine and while the water has been open the rise, the climb has been slow and the fish have pretty much stayed on the bite. Some good caddis fishing has occured on the lower during the evenings - been pretty much nymphing program during the day. The upper has been a most cooperative with nymphs as well - had some exotics out of there a week ago - a grayling, a brook trout and a fine sucker. Last grayling I saw in there was 12 years ago - cool to see one again.
The Missouri, now 15,000cfs is huge but fishing has been great if you can your bugs down the fish. Long rigs with wire worms and fire bead scuds are a huge part of the deal, putting them in the soft spots where the fish are congregated is the other. Will be spending a lot of time up there in the next few weeks giving the waterds around here a chance to settle down.
Its going to be a long runoff this year - might not get on that Yellowstone until mid July - once we do get on there my guess is that we'll see some of the best fishing we've seen in a while. The fish are loving all this water. With a few good years of it now, we're really looking good for the future.
