Madison River Campground

We stay here just about every year to fish the Madison River. This is the first (and I hope last?) year it’s reservation only, which was a total surprise. When we first came we could only get two consecutive nights on the open site we chose, so we thought we would have to move to another campground for one night and then return for a few more nights. Whoever held the site for the one night apparently cancelled so we were able to get two more nights and after that we signed up for two more. Unfortunately, with the reservation you pay an $8 reservation fee each time you make a reservation instead of just paying cash or writing a check. Not good. The nearby Riverview Campground uses the same camp host, is no reservation so I’m not sure why this small 10 site campground is reservation only.

The highway is nearby and you do get road noise, plus the unpaved road through and past the campground kicks up dust when cars/trucks go by, but at night things settle down and it’s quite peaceful.

In spite of the changes, we would still come back and now that we know it’s reservation only we’ll have to plan ahead.

Located just off Highway 287 about 40 miles south of Ennis, the Madison River Campground is a convenient spot for fishermen & fisherwoman. The campground has about 8 sites with 2 pit toilets and 2 water spigots. It’s a great base camp to operate out of. There is no hiking trails or biking trails, it is just your basic campground. There is no garbage cans so you have to pack out what you bring in. There are some bear boxes provided for safe food storage. It’s a basic campground in a super convenient spot for fishing. Be aware if you have a larger rig the bridge into the campground has a 4 ton weight limit. But that’s probably it a big issue because the sites are not overly large so a big RV may want to look elsewhere.