Fishing as of late

Things have been pretty hectic with the arrival of Matthew Vane Swank a little over a week ago now. Nevertheless, I have been guiding some and even got to go fish for myself last night!

Things started off last last Wednesday with a trip to the Yellowstone just after the Mother's Day Caddis Hatch. For whatever reason, it was a tough day. We got some fish on nymps but had to work for them. They weren't coming up, despite the presence of a billion Caddis and March Browns. Oh well, I wasn't alone as I had several reports from other guides thatg they had a tough day as well.

The stone blew out the next day and I ended up doing a trip to the Lower Mad on Friday. Again, just a few days after the Caddis started and tough fishing. We definitley got enough fish and lost a few as well, but overall, it was tough. I tried just about every Caddis pupa pattern in the shop behind a Crayfish and the fish just kept eating the Crays.

Staurday was windy as hell and I had a great client in town visiting the grandbaby and just wanted to get out. We went to Sitzs' to fish their ponds, but it was so windy we only gave it an hour or so before calling it quits. The ponds looked like they were in great shape and they've supposedly been stocked again this year so I'm anxious to get out there on a good day. Probably later this week as the Lower Madison is now the only game in town, except the spring creeks in Paradise Valley and I have 4 more trips this week.

So, Chris and I went out to the Lower last night and had a good time. We got plenty of fish on dries the last 2 hours of so with ELk Hairs and Mother's Day Pupa. It was tougher than it should've been, but we still got some fish. Nymphing was good from 5-7 or so. I felt better about my abilities after last night.

Today, I took a guy on a float from Warm Springs to Black's Ford. The BLM is almost done paving Warm Springs, and you can get in there now without any issues. Not too many folks out today, but fishing was good. Crayfish and worms did the trick very well as we landed 3 fish over 18 inches and a bunch of 12-14 inchers with a few in between as well. I feel like I should've been messing with bugs, but it's hard to take off the worm when it's working so well! Not much on top, but it was pretty sunny for the most part today. The fish seem to be eating very well the last 2 days over there and not too picky (as long as you have a Crayfish and a worm).

I'm doing a half day walk wade trip on the Lower tomorrow as theUpper is officially in pretty bad shape. I gues it was fishable today, but not sure what it will be like tomorrow. I'm guessing that it will be 2-3 weeks before the Upper starts to come back around as there isn't too mcu snow to come down.

Check out the or otter scar on the fish below!