Spring's Mixed Blessing

WARM AND WET

Some Snow: Some Rain

snow melts quickly

WALLPAPER: OVERBANK FLOW MADISON RIVER

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.. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help, {Psalm 121:1.}
.. Pacific moisture is still streaming into Montana from a displaced Gulf of Alaska Low Pressure System.
.. It brings wet snow to the higher elevations of our mountains and warm rain to the rest of the hills and river valleys.
.. The intermittent cyclic nature of the storms and, the rapid warm-up between them, sends the melting wet snow charging down slope into the saturated river valleys.
.. Fisher folk look to the hills and praise our current snow pack and the snow water content. It is higher than we've seen in quite some time.
.. However, both the pack and water content are sinking rapidly to low levels. The snow pack depth is holding nicely but the water content is already below normal. 
.. We'll keep you posted as May fades to June and then rapidly slips into July. This phenomena produces an interesting bit of dynamic in our river's runoff. 
.. As the cooler storm weather slows the snow melt,  the tributary streams slow down and rapidly clear of their suspended load.
.. As the post-storms warm weather bursts into the neighborhood the tributaries roar to life and color up as they grasp the sand, silt and clay from their channel and move it down stream.
.. "So what?" - you say! It's a normal thing. And so it is BUT, the regularity of this oscillating phenomenon leads the neighbors to "FISH THE PULSE."
.. Right now the  Gallatin River is pulsing regularly. Sections of the river are very clear: others are chocolate.
.. Some folks in Bozeman and many in Big Sky are searching the river for the clear segments - AND CATCHING FISH. It seems that the fish understand this!
.. The clear plugs vary in length depending on the depth of the cold weather and the rapidity of the warm-up. Some of these clear pulses can be several miles long. Take you time and carefully examine and observe the river for clues.
.. River depth can maintain or degrade the pulse. Deeper sections are generally the most clear, (higher upstream.) More shallow sections can slow and mix the sediments and produce cloudy or milky waters.
.. Kudos to those neighbors from around here and as far away as Bozeman who have figured this out and are fishing through this high water "unfishable" river stage. Dry/dropper is the ticket.

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.. So far our predicted storm is kind of puny. We're headed to that fresh section of water just below Taylor Fork.
.. It's just now beginning to color up. Hopefully this 'storm' will bring some coolness and another pulse of clearer water.

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WALLPAPER: WAFFLED HASH BROWN SPUDS & CHEESE OMELET

Flood Stage

COMES THE COLOR

A Water Park

the warm wet spring

WALLPAPER:  FLOOD STAGE, NATIONAL PARK MEADOWS

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.. Briefly: flood stage in National Park Meadows, more than just "tea stained," more moisture pending, even the Firehole River is colored.
..The west side of Yellowstone National Park is wet; very wet. Bison in the meadows are ankle deep in standing water perched upon saturated soils.
.. Twin Lakes, north of Norris Junction have joined into a single lake. The park landscape resembles parts of the palmetto swamps of Florida, (minus the little palm trees.)

THE UNIVERSAL NEBULOUS

.. Green-up is doing nicely and accelerating apace with the warmness and wetness of our recent weather.
.. Catching Between the Lakes is slowing as releases from Hebgen Dam provide for the annual draw down to allow storage for all the runoff.
.. This is a good time to tell stories and marvel at the renewing power of our Spring discharge.
.. Boulders, Cobbles, Silt, Sand, and Clay get rearranged in our rivers. Nutrients are stripped and renewed at the same time. Banks are undercut anew or collapsed as the rivers grind away.
.. These processes, (and many others,) change the rivers. Erosion and deposition take place simultaneously in different places.
.. These changes affect the fish. Their feeding, their hiding, their resting, their migratory routes. Fisher folk seldom respond to these changes. They pretend befuddlement.

MADISON MAULER

.. We are blessed with a ringside seat to these changes. So are the local professional fly fishers. Sadly most of them ignore this dynamic period.
.. They call it unfishable, (which it mostly is,) but it is not uninteresting.
.. It provides insight into the earliest of Spring fishing and can save precious moments of fishing time. The saddest part is that "RELEARNING" is extended.
.. One significant byproduct of this dynamic is the amount of debris that remains in the rivers.
.. This debris, (animal, vegetable, mineral,) must be relearned by the fish. Most of it looks like food. They eat it.
.. Cagey, professional fisher folk, await the earliest bug hatches and choose their flies accordingly. They, unlike the fish, ignore the debris hatch.
.. Our neighbors don't. We listen to the neighbors. We've seen trout stomachs full of pebbles, sticks, leaves, etc. Mostly in early Spring catching.

GLITTER NYMPH

.. We hear the pros and the very experienced express bewilderment when fish don't take their super flies during the early Spring hatches.
.. Perhaps something less super is what the fish are eating.
.. Just say'n.

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WALLPAPER:  GREEN UP ON THE GIBBON

The Oval Office

THE THREE MOUSKETEERS:   Хорошие друзья

Breaking News

Too Fine Of A Point

WILL KOCH'S WIN ?

Zinke Loves Them

ignoring five tribes

ZINKE:   JUST WHAT THE BROTHERS ORDERED

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.. We've seen the problems that Ryan Zinke brought to Montana from California and Utah. Now our nation can see how it's done.
.. There is an insidious coalition comprised of blind outdoor bloggers, land developers, snake oil politicians, and insensitive Utards, that is  funded by billionaire dark money and is visible for those that would see.

SOON TO BE UNDONE ?

.. We've used this space to remind fly fishers that this issue is bigger than traveling to exotic destinations or tying spiffy flies from newly developed synthetic materials. In vain we're sure.
.. It's not getting much press but Zinke is visiting Utah and Bears Ears.
.. He's doing it without any Native Americans. He's doing it with the looters and plunderers.
.. Yesterday WESTWISE ran a brief piece that detailed the road show and it's cast of characters, {LINK WW.}
.. We're gratified to see that MOLDY CHUM has referenced the piece, {LINK MC.}
.. We too, saw it coming a few weeks ago, {LINK FF, FG, FH.} And, the efforts to transfer  our public lands to state control is easily documented as coming from Utah.

SNAKE OIL SALES ?

.. That's where the Koch brothers and Ken Ivory started the AMERICAN LANDS COUNCIL, {LINK MC, TS.}
.. We've seen Ken Ivory in Montana. This is where a complaint was filed with our State Attorney General for fraud, {LINK MT.} The three state ripoff was detailed HERE and THERE.
.. But we digress. The BEARS EARS region is tied to 30 Native American Tribes with ancestral, historical, and contemporary associations with the living landscape, {LINK BE}.
.. It was designated as a National Monument after consultation with stakeholders of all persuasions. It was a multi-year process that included cattlemen, oilmen, land developers, Utah citizens of all religious and ethnic heritages.
.. The conclusion reached was overwhelmingly that this bit of geography should be set aside, {LINK SA, IC,}
.. Of course the whiners with billions are the ones that get to influence the current review. This is a test case for the Zinke, Ivory, Koch cartel. We'll see.

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A Must Click

FROM PATAGONIA

CLICK HERE

A Lowland Migration

NEIGHBORS FLEEING

Runoff Increasing

green up progressing

WALLPAPER:  GREEN UP

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.. Way down yonder on the lowland Madison River, just as the runoff color becomes marginal, BWO's, Caddis, and Midges are frolicking like mad. It must be the weather.
.. This note has to be brief. Soon the rate of discharge and the color will turn the fishing to somewhere between normal & hit and miss.

CDC BWO   =   JUST RIGHT

.. Right now is prime catching time from Reynold's Pass all the way to Ennis, Montana. Best get your catch on and follow our neighbors to the Madison River.
.. Quake Lake to Lyon's is BWO country: not too big and not too small, (not too fat and not too thin,)  this is an A.M. thing right now, but not too early, (and not too late.)
.. All day for midges and stonefly nymphs. And, as we saw last week, the caddis are on time in the afternoon.

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.. Into the fray go the neighbors. We'll follow with a modicum of dignity = somewhat slothfully and wade some around the pass this afternoon.

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