Madison River
near West Yellowstone, Montana · USGS gauge 06037500
Flow is lower today than on this date in any of the previous 21 years this gauge has recorded. The lowest of those was 313 ft³/s in 2025.
Montana FWP lists no emergency closure or hoot-owl restriction on the Madison River, on its restrictions page as read at 07:17 UTC.
These readings do not say whether fish are biting, whether there is parking, or whether the season is open. The shop reports below cover what is biting.
Madison River reports from local shops
Each shop writes its own report. Listed here: the date on each one and the hatches and flies it names. Their words stay on their sites; follow the link to read them.
Four local shops have posted a report on the Madison River in the last two weeks. Two of them mention blue-winged olives; one mentions caddis, midges and october caddis. Dungeon, Juju Baetis, Pheasant Tail and Zebra Midge are on two of their fly lists.
Before you drive
| Overnight | 23°F, wind 1 mph Patchy Fog |
|---|---|
| Sunday | 57°F, wind 0 to 7 mph Areas Of Fog then Mostly Sunny |
| Sunday Night | 23°F, wind 3 mph Mostly Clear then Patchy Fog |
| Monday | 59°F, wind 0 to 8 mph Areas Of Fog then Sunny |
How this water changes through the year
Over 22 years of record, flow on Madison River peaks in May, when the median runs about 703 ft³/s, and falls to its lowest in September at around 371 ft³/s. Today's 303 is below even that seasonal low. The band on the chart is where the middle 60% of years fall, so a reading inside it is ordinary for the date and one outside it is not.
Nearby monitored waters
No water here is recommended over another. Same measurements, three closest waters.
Species
Listed by Montana FWP for Madison River: Arctic Grayling, Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Common Carp, Longnose Dace, Longnose Sucker, Mottled Sculpin, Mountain Sucker, Mountain Whitefish, Rainbow Trout, Stonecat, Utah Chub, Westslope Cutthroat Trout, White Sucker, Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout.
The agency's list covers FWP's whole waterbody, river mile 0 to 132; FishMT publishes no reach-level list. USGS 06037500 near West Yellowstone is FWP's own listed gauging station at river mile 131. The list spans the full river including the Hebgen and Ennis reservoir reaches. The agency prints no date on the list; read 2026-09-08.
Access points
| Coordinates | To gauge |
|---|---|
| 44.6571, -111.0680 · near West Yellowstone USGS gauge location. Not a listed public access point; check access before you travel. | 0.0 mi |
Sources and method
- Live
- USGS gauge 06037500, Madison River near West Yellowstone, MT, 0.0 mi from the listed access point. Fetched 2026-10-18 07:19 UTC.
- History
- USGS daily values: flow 2005–2026, 7,940 daily values; water temperature 2014–2026, 4,480 daily values. Percentile is the share of readings within 7 days of this calendar date, across all years, below the current one (flow n=315 over 21 years, water temperature n=180 over 12 years).
- Rules
- Seasons, limits and licences are not on this site and are not copied from the agency that publishes them: Montana FWP.
- Species
- Montana FWP, Madison River, undated, read 2026-09-08.
- Heat
- Montana FWP: hoot-owl restrictions, no fishing from 2 p.m. to midnight, once a water reaches 73 °F on three consecutive days (published 2025-06-11, checked 2026-09-08). The water temperature card compares today's reading with that figure and says nothing about whether a restriction applies. Whether one is in force today is on Montana FWP's restrictions page.
- Restrictions
- Montana FWP, current waterbody restrictions, read 2026-10-18 07:17 UTC. Seasonal closures are in the regulations, not on that page.
- Shop reports
- Chosen from the organic search results for “madison river fishing report” (Ahrefs, read 2026-10-01), keeping shops and guides and dropping social media, forums and other aggregators. Linked, not quoted, and not endorsed. Report dates, hatches and fly names read from each page 2026-10-18, by matching a fixed list of insects and patterns: a name not on the list is not shown, and a report older than 30 days shows its date only.
- Forecast
- NOAA National Weather Service, api.weather.gov, for the coordinates of the nearest access point.
Independent presentation of public data. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by the USGS, NOAA or Montana FWP.