Mother's Day Caddis

Every year in SW Montana, the Mother's Day Caddis Hatch marks the end of spring/winter and the beginning of good fishing (minus the tourists). Of course, it usually doesn't happen ON Mother's Day...but this year it did! Or at least the day before, which is when C-Dog (Chris) and I decided to do a combo-fish adventure on the Lower Madison: wade fish it Friday night after work, and then on Saturday do a crazy float in the kayaks from Greycliff all the way to Three Forks (12.5 miles).

Friday night was good fishing and there were many caddisflies about. I had several strikes but missed them all. Chris caught 3 trout!


This is a classic view of the Lower Madison from where I was fishing:




And here is Chris downstream, catching:

So the next day we loaded up the kayaks and drove out to the put in after leaving Chris' car down in Three Forks:

We rigged up the kayaks and began our epic float (at 1pm). The main problem with the float was that there were so many places to stop and fish that by 4pm we had only gone like 2 miles! Not good. But how could you not stop?


Eventually we had to high tail it down to Three Forks, so we actually started paddling. We just made it to the take out at I-90 at 7:15pm. Chris had to drive back to Greycliff to get the Canyonero so we could rack the kayaks. We didn't get home till 10pm! But, while I was waiting I got this awesome pic of weather moving in over the Bridgers:





All in all, an epic day! Although, in accordance with a disturbing trend Chris caught all the fish.