Road Trip Flies

Our next fly fishing road trip is only a few weeks away and I need to begin getting our road trip flies ready for a several weeks of fishing.

I’ve had a few RiverKeeper Flies regulars ask when we plan to leave on our next fly fishing road trip and whether we will return and fish the Madison River in Montana.

The answer is “yes”, but we haven’t decided on a date to leave.

I’ve been checking the water levels occasionally to see whether our route will take us through the Idaho panhandle and try to fish Kelly Creek or head through the lower part of Idaho and hit the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River.

A good snowpack year has made for high runoff levels in many rivers. As I looked back in last year’s post, I wrote about the unprecedented rain and snowmelt. Do you remember the flooding in Yellowstone Country? The Northeast corner of the Park and Red Lodge, MT received massive amounts of water and flooding was prevalent.

I’m looking forward to fishing the Madison River, MT. It’s one of the places I find my Zen. I’ve written about this before. There’s something about the Madison River Valley that really speaks to me.

And the fly fishing isn’t bad either!

Here are a few images of Rainbow Trout we’ve caught there in previous years.

And a few Brown Trout as well.

The quality of these fish are why we return each year.

Here are the posts I created about our Madison River, MT fly fishing last year.

• Fly Fishing the Madison River in July 2022
• Second Week Fly Fishing the Madison River
• Lessons Learned from Fly Fishing the Madison River

When I read them, not only does it bring back wonderful memories, it also reminds me of the high water and high temperatures we experienced. In fact, the high temperatures and resulting “hoot owl” restrictions changed our plans in late July.

I’ll be checking the Provider Box and ensure I have enough of the flies listed in those posts.

Caddis

Mayflies

Stoneflies

Terrestrials

I hope your summer fly fishing plans are coming together too.

Enjoy…go fish!