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I'm heading to the Madison the 2nd to the 9th July but I'm planning on flying out a couple days early and fishing a few other streams. Does anyone have any suggestions on what rivers I should try out for 2-3 days before I head to the Madison? Also it would be nice if they were within an hour drive of Bozeman. I've been fishing the Madison for years but have never really branched out and fished any of the other rivers in the area.
The Gallatin would be the closest larger river.
There are also a couple of rod fee spring creeks in the Bozeman area on the MZbar Ranch.
http://www.milesnickrecreation.com/f...urstreams.aspx
There are also some smaller creeks going up the canyons but I don't know about them. Call the River's Edge Fly Shop.
I would be in contact with some shops out there as it looks as if runoff is gonna be still runnin at that time.
I think you may be a few weeks too early for a lot of the stream and river fishing near Bozeman. I could suggest a couple places, but with the above average snowpack this year, I'm not anticipating they would fish well until the 3rd week of July and maybe even later.
Trav and I walked a bit of the Yellowstone North of town this afternoon, he figures we are about a month behind 'normal.'
LF
Nothing near Bozeman besides the Madison, maybe the East Gallatin, the private spring creeks, and the private lakes will be fishable at that time. The Yellowstone is likely to still be pumping 25,000cfs with 50-foot logs rolling down it every few seconds.
Edit: the Firehole, Madison, and Gibbon inside YNP, and probably the lower Gardner, will also be fishable, but all of these are 1.5 hours from BZN.
Hopefully it won't be too high on the madison. Can't remember the exact year but about 10 years ago I went for a week and it was super high. Caught all my trout on black woolly buggers right next to shore. Thank you for the suggestions.
Trav and I were out walking on the Yellowstone again this morning on DePuy's property....water still below normal winter standards. No run-off apparent yet. The Spring Creek may be a little low but looks wonderful and there were I believe 4 groups of people fishing it today. Lots of rising fish....baetis and midges. A beautiful morning out there - has cooled off remarkably now, clouded over, rain and snow forecast for tonight. (We also checked the Bluebird boxes, only one damaged out of the 50 - did see 3 pair of Mountain Bluebirds, they appear to be late as well.)