Despite Disease, Madison River Deserves A Whirl
Fly-shop operators, guides and businessmen in the West Yellowstone area, shocked when they learned that the whirling disease had killed most of the rainbows in Montana’s Madison River, have concluded that maybe the business of serving and guiding fishermen won’t be so bad after all.
At least for this year.
Although the rainbow population in the river from Ennis to Quake Lake has dropped more than 90 percent since 1991 because of the disease, fly-shop operators and guides are telling anyone who will listen that the river is still full of brown trout and that anglers will hook some big rainbows.
Ann Criner of Bud Lilly’s shop at West Yellowstone said there are plenty of streams and lakes in the area where the rainbows are thriving. Rainbows in the Madison above Quake Lake, including Hebgen Lake and the stream within Yellowstone National Park, are still healthy.
Furthermore, she said, rainbows in the tributaries to the Madison in the park and such streams as the Henry’s Fork, Gallatin and Yellowstone have healthy rainbow populations.
“We’re anticipating fairly normal fishing this year,” she said.
The Madison from Quake Lake to Ennis will be closed until May 17.
Fly-shop operators expect such streams as the Henry’s Fork, Firehole, Gibbon, Yellowstone, Gardner, Gallatin and Lewis rivers, as well as Cliff, Wade, Lewis and Yellowstone lakes, in the West Yellowstone area to be popular this year.
So far, they are telling clients, the whirling disease has been found in rainbows only in the 50-mile section of the Madison above Ennis.
But biologists say its likely the disease eventually will spread through the drainage all the way to the Missouri.
It’s becoming apparent that many blue ribbon trout streams will have plenty of water during the spring and early summer months. Snowstorms and rainstorms the last couple of months have soaked the country in the Clark Fork and Beaverhead drainages.
The Bitterroot and Rock Creek are expected to provide excellent trout fishing this spring and summer.
The Missouri in the Wolf Creek area holds large numbers of big rainbows and brown trout that rise to hatches of Pale Morning Dun, baetis and tricos.
The Beaverhead in the Dillon area is one of Montana’s finest trout streams. It holds trophysized rainbows and brown trout, most of which are caught in the upper river.
xxxx Eager kokanee Lake Mary Ronan is among the most notable of the region’s kokanee lakes because the silvers readily take flies. Most anglers troll and still-fish for the kokanee, but a few fly fishers spend time on the lake when the Callibaetis mayfly and chironomid hatches peak in May.