Fish on the Lower!

(Below) A fish caught on the swing! (don’t worry the barb was pinched and the fish was released with its “eyelid” intact!)

I had a pretty fun morning on the Lower Madison yesterday. I started the day off flailing around with my spey rod and swinging some streamers without much success. I only had a few hookups after covering a substantial amount of water so I switched to the nymph rig around 10am. As soon as the nymphs went on I started yarding them in! Fish were eager to eat a soft hackle copper john in any of the faster moving water. I fished until one o’clock landing quite a few fish, however the catch of the day ended up not being a fish. After I had pulled a few fish out of a hole, I took another cast and hooked into what felt like a monster. Thinking it was a large fish, I began to play the “fish” slowly. As I started to add some more pressure I was expecting the fish take a big run, but when the run didn’t happen, I knew something was up. I started to reel in my line and in lieu of a fish there was someone else’s fly line! I figured it was probably just an old chunk of floating line but as a kept reeling it in a fishing rod and reel emerged on the other end! The rod is in pretty good shape, with just a little bit of fading on the one side, and the reel is still in near perfect condition. I figure it couldn’t have been in the river very long considering the shape it is in, so if you’ve lost or know someone who’s lost a fly rod on the Lower Madison recently, give the shop a call and we can get the it back to you!

The best catch of the day!