Chasing Salmonflies on the Lower Madison

Brett French finds that he’s lost his wading legs as he and a friend fish a caddis hatch — that was supposed to be a salmonfly hatch — in Beartrap Canyon. “Although the salmonflies never showed up, caddis were out in droves. Hundreds of them hovered over and next to bank-side brush in a cloud of brown, mottled movement. A greedy red-winged black bird sat atop a juniper tree flitting from branch to branch as it gorged on the quarter-inch-long bugs.” In the Helena Independent Record.