Madison River
Born in Yellowstone National Park, where the Gibbon and Firehole meet, the Madison is a tailwater with the hatches of a freestone river. The best stretch runs from Quake Lake — created by a landslide in 1959 — to the town of Ennis, and is often called “the 50-mile riffle.” “The whole thing is wide and shallow,” says Ryan Whalen of the Madison River Fishing Company. “You can fish really traditional riffles, buckets, and pocket water.” Public access is good on the Madison, and the whole upper stretch offers excellent fishing for browns and rainbows. “The average fish here is 16 to 18 inches,” Whalen says. “If you’re here during the right time, it’s as good as it gets.” Fishermen can swing huge streamers for trophy browns, or fish size 20 dry flies to rising rainbows. Whalen’s favorite time to fish the Madison is early summer, when the salmonflies hatch. “You can catch 20-plus-inch trout on a dry fly,” he says. “You don’t have too many places you can do that.”
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