- Best season: late June through September
- Drift-boat float or walk-and-wade trips
- Recommended outfitters: Madison River Outfitters, Hooked Outfitting, Eaton
- Base from Ennis, Big Sky, or The Ranch at Rock Creek
The Madison out of Ennis is the Montana fly-fishing river — a blue-ribbon trout stream that runs eighty miles from Yellowstone to the confluence at Three Forks, the rainbow and brown populations that have been worked by serious anglers since the 1950s, and the drift-boat float that is the proper Montana fly-fishing day. Madison River Outfitters out of Ennis is the senior shop in town — thirty-plus years of guiding, the right boats, and guides who know which side of which bend the fish are on at noon in mid-July.
For first-timers the half-day walk-and-wade with a patient instructor is the right introduction; for couples and groups the full-day float with a packed lunch on a gravel bar is the trip to remember. Pair with a few nights at The Ranch at Rock Creek or at Triple Creek for the full Montana week.
The river that earns the trip.
