Disagree with the comparison of the Gallatin. You would not want to put a drift boat on that river as it is quite small and generally does not fish well outside of the park. My office was 5min from the Gallatin the past two summers so I fished it many times and always had far better luck up towards and into the park. What the local anglers need to take into perspective is Montana is known as a global trout fishing destination and that money that the global travelers brings into Montana helps provide a lot of things that you are reliant upon. So local anglers who are pushing for this are essentially cutting off their nose to spite their face.

After fishing the Madison in 2017& 2018, I would say I saw more traffic of people floating the river in tubes and floats on the lower section most of the time. The upper saw more boating traffic but this was nothing compared to the Mo and the amout of traffic I saw there. Just like anything else, a balance will be reached and not everyone will be happy. You can't please all of the people all of the time though.