Fellow e-12ers:
As we slowly, but ever so assuredly, saunter towards Opening Day of Extravaganza 2012, now is the time when we ever more closely keep an eye on the snow pack and weather conditions in Western Montana. As I mentioned before (on more than once occasion, I do believe!), come May and June (when the weather warms, the traditionally wettest months of the year arrive in Montana and the snow melt runoff begins) the environmental state is set that will be the placemat for our E-12 fishing fortunes.
What is our goal, you ask? Well, what we are shooting for (and what the fish are banking on as well) is a blandly normal year when the snow pack is “average”, the runoff during May and early June is “normal” and the resulting fishing for us is “spectacular”. Each Extravaganza is timed to begin during the third week of June, when historical averages deliver to us the best and most desirable stage for fly fishing on our home waters: The Bitterroot River, the Clark Fork of the Columbia River and The Big (“A River Runs Through It”) Blackfoot River. Simply stated, when things are spot on come the third week of June fishing in Montana is at its peak—new bug life then abounds in and around waters that have been cleansed with the Spring runoff with resulting spectacular fly fishing.
And that is just where we are headed, gang. For, as of right now, both snow pack levels and snow water equivalency in our key mountain ranges (the Bitterroot Mountains and the Blackfoot watershed) are darn near “average”. In fact, as of this morning, the Bitterroot Range is posting snow pack at 105% of 20 year averages with exactly 100% of snow water equivalent (“swe”) and the Blackfoot range (beginning about twenty miles northward) is touting a 96% snow pack with 93% swe, and that bodes very, very well for E-12 and all of you E-12ers. That being said, however, as you veterans well know, in about a month from now we will be tracking on an almost daily basis the water flows and runoff rates on our traditional chart (where we have now six years of data on a single comparison chart—see prior blogsites for this posting) and key to our continued good fortunes will be both the weather conditions during the month of may and any then additions to the upper climes’ snow levels. Over the past ten years of being extravagant we have gone into May with “average/normal” conditions only to see a heat wave befall the greater Missoula area and a resultant “early runoff”, leaving us wanting on our desired fishing water levels. Each day of each year we have fished, however; so, the question is not “whether to fish or not to fish” but, rather, “how good are the fishing conditions going to be”.
Fishing in Montana is a 12 month a year proposition—yes, except for certain spawning tributaries, you could/can literally fish 365 days a year—that is the “fishing season”. Also, come the end of March, a phenomenon occurs in the Bitterroot valley that is pretty much limited to it and the adjacent waters of western Montana: a stone fly about ¾” in its adult length emerges from the waters into its adult form creating the first of the new year’s “dry fly” (i.e., flies that alight on the surface, as opposed to the subsurface, of the rivers’ waters) opportunities. The fly is called the “skwala” (for reasons unbeknownst to me, btw) and, for those hearty enough to bear the brunt of Montana’s ongoing winter weather provides the first opportunity to take a fly rod and dance with the brown and rainbow trout beauties that occupy that wonderful river.
With the “skwala hatch” comes our first real-time/non-theoretical opportunity to see just what the new year’s fishing prospects in fact are and, come Tuesday, the first E-12 advance party, consisting of long time Group One veterans Brian “Moraine” Shepard and his “wingman” son Josef “Fear The Beard” Shepard will begin seven (count ‘em!) days of fly fishing on “The Root” with our wonderful Double Up Outfitter John “The Great But Propaneless” [yes, there is a story there, gang!] Gould. Year after year now Moraine has spanked the eagerly rising-to-skwalas Root fish and has been kind enough to send up pics of his daily bounty, which will (finally!) become fish fodder for (y)our 2012 blogsite. [If you have not already posted this to your favorites, do so now for, as Opening Day comes closer, this will be our primary communication mode with you.]
So, there you go, gang; “A” is indeed for “Average” and “Advance Party”---keep your eyes peeled for the next installment where “B” is for “Bitterroot” and “Big Blackfoot”!!
Best to all in eager anticipation of it all,
Rock Creek Ron
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