Lower Madison River Fishing Report

The Lower is back. 1,150 cfs at the dam and 59 degrees on the 5 a.m. reading, which tells you how far this stretch has come since August. This piece of river draws warm water off the top of Ennis Lake, and it spent chunks of the summer under hoot owl restrictions, closed from 2 p.m. on. FWP lifted those at the end of August, and honestly the first week or two after the lift was slow. The afternoon fishing below Eight Mile took a while to wake back up even with cooler water. It's awake now. Daytime peaks are topping out in the mid 60s, well under the 73-degree trigger, so there's no responsible-angling reason to quit at 2 anymore. Fish it all day. That said, this is still late-season Lower Madison, which means weeds. The salad is thick after a full summer of growing, and it dictates how you fish. The river fishes like a series of buckets and channels between weed beds rather than one continuous run, and the fish are stacked in those slots. Find clean gravel between the green stuff and you've found fish. Clarity is good, a little algae tint but nothing that hurts you. The menu down here is different from upstream. This is crayfish and sculpin water first, and the fall fish are on the crustaceans hard right now. Hoppers are still around on warm afternoons, and the Lower's fish are less jaded about foam than the Upper's because pressure dropped off a cliff once the summer recreation crowd left. That's the other thing: you'll have a lot of river to yourself. The tubers are gone, the guide traffic has mostly shifted upstream, and a weekday on the Lower right now feels like a different river than it did in July. BWOs are starting to show on gray days and will only build into October, and there are still a few caddis coming off in the evenings. Bear Trap Canyon is worth the effort right now. Access is on foot only, from the trailhead at the downstream end off Highway 84, and the trail runs about nine miles upstream toward the dam. There are no roads in, no shortcuts, and the farther you walk the better it gets. The canyon water stays a touch cooler and the fish in there see a fraction of the flies the highway stretch does. Pack water, watch for rattlesnakes because they're still out on warm afternoons, and give yourself daylight for the walk back. The float through the highway water is straightforward at 1,150 cfs, no surprises, and the access points along 84 make short wade sessions easy if you've only got a half day. If you're trying to decide between here and upstream, I'd say this: the Upper is the prettier fishery and the technical game, but the Lower is where I'd take someone who wants bent rods and a fair shot at a genuinely heavy brown on a crayfish right now.

Tactics for today

Dead drift a crayfish pattern or a Pat's Rubber Legs through the buckets between weed beds under an indicator set shallower than you think, four to five feet, because the fish are in the slots, not the deep tanks. Twitch the crayfish at the end of the drift. That little hop triggers eats a dead drift won't. In the afternoon, bang the banks with a hopper and don't be shy about a #8. Early and late, strip a sculpin on a slow retrieve through the tailouts. And check your flies every few casts. The weeds will foul your rig constantly, and a nymph trailing salad catches nothing.