Fly Fishing the Madison River

Fly fishing the Madison River is the next stop on this year’s fly fishing road trip . If you are a regular of RiverKeeper Flies, you know we’ve returned to the Madison for several years to coincide with the Caddis hatch. The water level in early and mid June 2025 was very low, which I’ll highlight below.

Arriving at the river on 6/29, we were surprised to see how low the water level really was. In previous years, those rocks showing above would have been covered by water. We arrived earlier because we thought the low water might have caused the Caddis hatch to start earlier. Turns out we were right. Not only were the Caddis earlier, but we heard of “lights out” fishing during the low flows. Our arrival found the river level just below 900 cfs. But earlier the same week, it was below 650 cfs.

Here are the river levels during our time on the water. Note how the water level increased slowly the first week from 900 to about 970 and then another steady increase to over 1300 cfs over the next week. Our final day on the Madison was 7/14.

While we caught our fair share of trout on dry flies, the numbers and sizes were lower than previous years. Don’t feel sorry for us, I’m just documenting our experience when I read this post in a year or two. You’ll see some beautiful fish in the images below and we were happy to have them rise to our flies.

We enjoy fly fishing the wade section of the Madison River and much of the time is spent around $3 Bridge. It’s a busy place, but we’ve always been able to find a spot to fish. The West Fork area and Lyons Bridge are two other locations we fish periodically because we are lucky to fish the Madison for a couple of weeks and enjoy variety. But for some reason, the $3 Bridge area keeps calling our names!

I never get tired of this view!

I’d read from local fishing reports that trout were located in different sections of the river because of the low flows. I can corroborate that fact. We didn’t find many fish close to shore during our morning fishing like previous years. They were on the edges of faster runs and of course in front of rocks and boulders.

Here is a nice Brown I found rising in this section.

And another beauty a little farther upstream for Dancingtrout.

Here is another shallow run that has held fish close to shore in previous years.

The flies that worked for us this trip were some of our favorites, but we were surprised how few Caddis imitation were tied on our tippet. The first few days, X Caddis, Improved F Fly, and Iris Caddis worked well.

But soon, we had more success with Mayfly imitations. A Sparkle Dun which I believe imitated Epeorus mayflies was quite successful.

Here are three mayflies we found along the river.

Towards the end of our time on the Madison River, we talked with a fellow fly fisher from Bozeman who was doing quite well with Rust Spinners. He had some tied with calf tail for the wing. I didn’t have any of those, but caught a few on the Compara Spinner.

Many fly fishers target the Madison for the Salmonfly and Golden Stone hatch. While we saw insects in the vegitation and flying around, we didn’t see fish rise to them. Many anglers were walking the banks with large Stonefly imitations. I wonder if they caught any fish?

And a few empty shucks…

Now for a few images to capture our fly fishing on the Madison this year.

Some of the tails on the Rainbows are so WIDE…a stark contrast to several Brown trout we landed.

To say we had a wonderful time is an understatement. The Madison River is a special place for us and we are grateful to be able to spend time there. The scenery, storms, and sunsets are amazing!

Above – storm on the Madison River

Below – sunset on the Madison River

Enjoy…go fish!

PS – Just a reminder I have a page entitled Fly Fishing Road Trips where I link all previous posts and it’s sorted by state and river. It’s a resource I use every year. You can find it on my RiverKeeper Flies home page.