Fellow Extravaganzers:
As you can see from the evolving red line on our flow chart, the 2012 runoff has its own distinctive fingerprint (different from each of the five past years that we have tracked the flow on our Rock Creek home river)—in fact, it our E-12 chart is beginning to look like part of the Sawtooth Mountains, with its radical upticks and down strokes!!
The evolving flow story for this year is that, at least for Rock Creek, due to high April temperatures, the snow melt began earlier that in any of the prior five years (as depicted with its 2500 cubic feet per second [“cfs”] beginning). In the Pintlar Mountains (which are the source of Da Creek’s runoff), the snow pack is currently just 35% of twenty year norm, and its snow water equivalent is just one quarter of norm…indeed, living evidence of an early 2012 runoff.
To show you how varying Montana’s mountain ranges are and how volatile its micro-climates can be and are, compare our primary-targeted E-12 fishing river, the Bitterroot River (which is literally just one watershed west of Rock Creek) where the current snow pack remains at (a very safe and comfortable) 64% of normal and the adjacent Blackfoot river drainage which currently boasts 90% of seasonal average remaining snow pack.
The prognosis, you ask?
We are in for one special year fishing the Bitterroot River during Groups One and Two and, you Threes out there, the Big (“A River Runs Through It”) Blackfoot River and its majestic canyon (along with the Bitterroot) await Da Tattoos as well as the Magnificent Threes—all becoming a wonderful place setting for our upcoming Extravaganza adventures together.
On my end, at the crack of dawn tomorrow, I have the great pleasure and privilege of driving your Hostess With the Mostess, Kookin’ Kathy, and your E-12 mascots “Sir” our 13 year old cocker spaniel and “Ma’am” our three year old ball of energy/water-nut black lab to E-12’s Headquarters where preparations for your quickly upcoming arrivals will soon be in their final-final stages. Along the way we are going to take time to “smell the roses” and, more particularly, fish both the Beaverhead and Big Hole Rivers just outside of Southwestern Montana’s town of Dillon, arriving on the scene of it all sated late this Memorial Day weekend’s Sunday.
So, I am pleased to formally announce that, flow-wise, we are in for one heck of a good year, gang….viva la Extravaganza!!
Best to all in the nearness of it all,
Rock Creek Ron
---<’///><
No comments:
Post a Comment