Ennis MT fly fishing with stoneflies
FishWater Outfitters and Ennis MT fly fishing guides rely very heavily on one major insect both during its beginning life stages and its adult life stages. This is the stonefly, a very well known insect which can be found in waterways throughout almost every continent in the world. If you have ever been fly fishing on The Madison River or any other river, especially in the Western Rocky Mountains, you have fished with or atleast seen a fly that is meant to imitate a stonefly. The most common and well known nymph fly is the Pats Rubberleg. This stonefly nymph is just as common and used most often as the prince and pheasant tail nymph and sometimes used more frequently. Our Madison River fly fishing guides will have hundreds of these patterns in our fly boxes throughout the year. They are especially effective both before and during the main salmonfly hatch. The stonefly nymph can be used under an indicator, tight lined, stripped or even hanging off of a large dry fly pattern.
Madison River Brown Trout
The stonefly nymphs can spend up to 3 years in the river until they hatch into adults. The nymphs can sometimes breathe out of a developed gill system or just out of their exoskeleton and they require cold fast moving streams. They spend the beginning stages of their life hiding out in the riverbed between crevices, rocks and pebbles. As the nymphs begin their staging towards emerging into an adult, they are congregating near the shore in softer moving water. Once they begin to start the emerging process as an adult, they will begin to latch onto exposed rocks and twigs on the shore line. FishWater Outfitters and ennis mt fly fishing guides will often target the trout that are feeding on these stonefly nymphs that are starting to hatch along the shore. Generally, we will look for dropoffs, edges, buckets and other shoreline characteristics that will have these nymphs congregating. The majority of the time, when fly fishing the Madison River, when the angler is able to cast the stonefly nymph into the correct spot on the bank and ideally keep the flies in the spot for a short duration, the trout are going to eat it.
Rainbow Trout caught on The Madison River
Although the nymphing with stoneflies can be unbelievably good, once these bugs hatch into adults, the real fun starts! Once the nymphs hatch into adults, they tend to live relatively shorter lives considering their life span in the river. Some adults can live a few days while other, larger stoneflies can live a week or so. These adult stoneflies mate while they are on the grass or branches over the river. The female adult will then lay the eggs back into the river where the new eggs will sink and adhere to the rocks on the riverbed to start the next 3 year journey. When the female adult lays her eggs in the water is one of the best times for fly fisherman to take advantage of the hatch. The adult stonefly will often dip their abdomen into the water to drop the eggs. Trout will really focus in on this and a well presented dry fly can raise some of the biggest trout of the season. These large adult stoneflies can also be blown into the river or knocked off of the branches, this will also help the trout to key in on this large meal. Madison River fly fishing with FishWater Outfitters will position the drift boat in the best spot throughout your float on the river for the best opportunities to catch that trout of a lifetime.
Dry Fly fishing on the Madison River
The largest of the stonefly insects is the Salmonfly and it can be very difficult to time it properly, unless you are able to stick around Ennis MT for a few weeks. FishWater Outfitters typically will see these big bugs begin the hatch any where from June 16th to July 4th. Every year the beginning of the hatch changes from date to date depending on how much snow and rain we had had the prior winter and throughout the spring. For example, if the winter was mild and the spring pretty dry, the hatch will start earlier. Just as if the winter had a lot of snow and the spring was very wet, which has been the case the last few years, the hatch will start much later and sometimes last even longer. If you are fortunate enough to catch the hatch head on, be very very happy because this can be some of the best fly fishing madison river has to offer.
Madison River rainbow trout
If you are already starting to think about warmer, long summer days in Montana and starting to plan your vacation to Ennis MT, call FishWater Outfitters today to schedule your trip. We still have some prime dates available to try and catch the famous Salmonfly hatch!
