In just a few days, the Upper Madison has transformed. Gone are the salmon flies and thick mayfly hatches. You still see some risers, but the windows are brief. One local has refocused on fishing the lakes. Jake at the Slide Inn fly shop says that we are now in an “in between” phase: bug
Category: Flies and fly tying
At the Vise: Sulphur Cripple
It could be coincidence, but I’ve had good luck throwing Sulphur Cripple patterns. This weekend, a brown almost at 19″ took one. Last month, a 20″ brown ate one as well. (Blog posts here and here.) Even when it doesn’t work, the pattern gets a lot of looks. Both times, I fished the flies on a
The Shallows
The river was chock full of anglers when I arrived at 7 am. Not every spot was taken: just the ones I wanted to fish. I fished the B water, working my way around anglers. A tightliner above me did well, fishing heavy flies. Relegated to skinny water, I focused on dries. I started with
More Euro Dry-Dropper Work
It doesn’t make sense to drive four hours to fish for four hours. Not much of fly fishing makes sense to non-anglers: the long drives, the early wake-up times, the incorrigible obsessions with fly-pattern details, water flows, and bug hatches. But to devout anglers, it all makes absolute sense. View this post on Instagram A