Our Annual Water Flow Watch Begins!

Extravagant Ones:

In this, the next of a now continual spate of email communications coming your way, with the advent of May, we now begin our annual watch of the water flows in Montana. To that end, here is a chart that will soon now be posted to Der Blog for easy review that track the water flows that we have experienced in Montana over the last three year, with this year's flowage reports to be laid in weekly in red.

For your rookies out there, what will now happen in Montana is, that as temperatures rise, the snow pack in the high mountains will begin to melt, sending turbidity (i.e., "dirt")-filled water downstream in thousands of tributaries that flow initially into our primary fishing rivers, the Bitterroot River and the Big ("A River Runs Through It") Blackfoot River, each of which then joins into the Clark Fork of the Columbia River at or near Missoula. As the turbidity rises, the clarity of the water decreases and, eventually, the fish stop feeding on the water's bug life (which, itself also goes dormant--thank you, Mother Nature!), until the water regains its clarity. The process is called "the runoff" and, at its height, not only will the volume of water that flows through each of the rivers dramatically increase (sometimes to 10x normal flowage levels) [making the rivers dangerous in their own right] but also the water will turn to the color of creamed mocha coffee reducing visibility for the fish to near "zero".

Over the last three years we have witnessed the extremes of the runoff:

(1) As you veterans will recall, 2007 was a "low snow, low water year"--that was the years that, by the time of our E-07 July last group, water and air temperatures had soared to such a high rate that the MT Fish, Wildlife & Parks Department (as they always will when river water temperatures reach into the low sixty degrees) restricted fishing statewide to "Hoot Owl Hours", where fishing was banned from 2:00 p.m. through midnight every day and we were arising at 5:00 a.m. to get on the water by 7:00 a.m to get our fishing in before the 2:00 p.m. shutdown [the reason for the shutdown being that, with high temperatures, the oxygen level in the water reduces and the fish cannot re-oxygenate après being caught, making them enfeebled and easy prey for their daily true fishing nemeses, the eagle and osprey].

(2) And, by marked contrast, those of you that Extravagantly fished two years ago in 2008 remember the continued high water runoff (that ran all the way through July!), where and when local Missoula water levels were so high that our first two groups found themselves trekking over the Continental Divide to fish the Missouri River (with phenomenal results, btw).

As your look to the chart (now your very best E-10 fishing barometer), using our home Rock Creek as a measuring stick, note what I regard to be the "perfect curve" that we had last year for E-09: (a) We had a "normal" snow pack to begin the runoff; (b) we had a great spike in snowmelt (due to high May temperatures) such that water levels literally spiked upwards (flushing/cleansing the rivers with great efficiency and relocating fish from their familiar winter haunts to unfamiliar haunts when we came on the scene); and (c) the water levels dropped perfectly for the 6/21 commencement of E-09 (unlike in 2008 when water flows continued to be too high, and unlike 2007 when, due to the paucity of beginning snow levels, they continued to plummet to unusually low levels).

To check you out on the chart, water flowage is measured in "cubic feet per second", or "cfs". Using Rock Creek as our barometer, what we want to have happen is just what happened last year (the black line)--a high spike into 3,000+ cfs and then, upon our arrivals, having that flowage drop to around 1800 cfs--the perfect scenario for our fishing experience. Our goal is to be on the scene just after the waters have re-cleared and just after the peak flowage has occurred.

As we begin the process for E-10, blessedly, with recent MT precipitation during the months of March and April, opening snow pack levels in the Bitterroot Mountain Range are currently at 63% (up from the low 50%) of average, so we have a better than even chance of having a "good runoff" this year...we will see, however, as we monitor Mother Nature's progress on a now weekly basis. Follow the red line as it progresses on our chart--my hope is that, with lower-than-last-year beginning snow pack levels, the line will climb to around 3,000 cfs around the end of May and then gradually decline to the 1500 cfs level come June 21st--that would be just about perfect for us. We shall see however!!

Welcome to our discharge watch, gang; this is like watching the end of a baseball season to see just who will be in the playoffs!!

Best to all in observation of it all,

Rock Creek Ron

And our first E-10 Contest Winner is From Group One:

Done – 8000 – like shooting fish in a barrel.

Cal Walters
Founder and Chief Strategy Officer

Perspective: Branding

   


   

RCR fishing Video!

Courtesy of (y)our Double-Up Outfitter, John "The Great But Propaneless" Gould, below is the link to a clip now posted to YouTube of a glorious March day on the Bitterroot---visions of what "y'all" will be doing first hand in now just a matter of weeks!

 

Best to all,

 

RCR

<'///><

 

p.s.  Thanks, Propaneless, not only for a(nother) great day on the water but for the now international posting!

Hey Ron,

    Here's some clips of You & Ben on the water on March 7th, it's now on You Tube. Enjoy...

    Just click this link  http://www.youtube.com/user/doubleupoutfitters#p/a/u/0/RtjE3hpB1QE

 

John Gould
Double Up Outfitters LLC
4209 Edgewater way
Stevensville, MT
59870

Phone:406.240.9498

Double Up Outfitters website
"The Daily Float"
Our Latest Video!!!

Extravaganza 2010 By The Numbers

 

 E-10ers:

 

By the numbers:  Sixty days from today, Group One will have already come and gone; Group Two will be amidst its final, third day of fishing; and Group Threers will be checking out (y)our blogsite to see (a) how much booze is left post Group One, (b) just how the fishing is going for "Da Twos" and (c) just what weather might be in store for their fishing adventure that will begin in just three (count 'em) days!

 

As you visit "Der Blog" you will notice that there is a visitor counter as you scroll down its right hand side.  As of moments ago, that counter read "289".  As we do each year, the E-10 participant that is our 400th visitor will receive, upon his or her arrival on the scene, a bottle of our private labeled (very rare and extraordinarily luscious) 2001 Rock Creek Red.  All you have to do is click onto Der Blog (which, by now should be posted to your favorites) and, if you are the lucky winner, print off the evidence that you are, indeed, the 400th site visitor and email it back to me to claim your prize.  Starting Monday, we will posting our flow reports (more to follow later on that subject, rookies!) which now becomes of primary importance as we look ahead to the waters that we will be fishing within...yes, sixty days. [By the way, the counter on our Extravaganza 2007 blogsite now reads 7,966...the same deal goes for the 8,000th visitor (that's a lot of visitors, folks!) to that site @ www.montana2007.blogspot.com --and this year, water-flow-wise is shaping up very, very much like that 2007 "fire year"!!]

 

Also, soon to come your way will be our annual Camp List if items to bring and to leave behind, as well as a bevy of other info to tantalize your (fly) fishing appetite. 

 

It is starting to get close, gang;  very, very close!!

 

Best to all in eager anticipation of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

     ---<'///><

 

 

Vestiges of Spring in Montana

RCR------<'///><

 

   

Spring In The Rockies!

Fellow Extravaganzers:

 

It was just Sunday that I sent you the bright and budding pictures of a Rocky Mountain spring--larch trees and hawthorne bushes budding, lawn re-greening and all the semblances of a renewed season of color, warmth and rebirth.  Such was the mental image that I had when going to bed last night and such was it again as I awoke this morning, only to look outside to ........a snowstorm!

 

As the pics above depict, spring in the Rockies can be and is a fickle thing, as the prediction is for between three and six inches of snow this mid-April pre-tax day (but not by much).  Imagine yourself for a moment as one of the osprey who, just earlier this week, returned to her nest at the foot of Rock Creek Road, or as the chipmunk that just yesterday was warmly feeding out of the feeder that is attached to my office window, or as the robin that was grubbing for insects in our lawn over this past weekend...yes, imagine each of them just as I awakening today to....winter, er... Spring In The Rockies!

 

Best to all from the glorious scene of it all!

 

RCR----<'///><

 

   

"Tween" Time In Montana

Sunday April greetings, Extravagant Ones!

 

As the attached photos depict, it is now "tween" time here in Montana--I just arriving here late last evening for my monthly vigil after having had the privilege during the three prior days of attending the National Wildlife Federation's annual confab (where the no-nonsense of global warming and equally important task of getting kids out into nature [as we used to do as kids] were the subjects of the day(s)) in Houston as an alternate delegate for our own beloved Montana Wildlife Federation (whose 75th annual event is to be this coming weekend in Helena--never a dull moment, gang!).

 

The first of the attached photos shows just how early spring is entering onto the Montana scene.  Compared to last year, when ice and ground snow pack were the stories this same time of the year, the story this year is of little ground snow mass--in fact, when I flew in from the East last evening (Houston via Minneapolis, of all weird routes), I was taken by the near total dearth of mountain snow on the Rockies' Continental Divide.

 

The balance of the pics bear evidence that spring, indeed, is nearby in these here parts:  In the first you can see the branches of our mountains' only deciduous pine tree, the larch pine, beginning to bud out; ditto in the second for our backyard's hawthorne bushes (thornusplantus humungus); and, in the last, you can see the green beginning to return to (y)our front yard's casting lawn.

 

Temperature-wise things are yet coolish here; in fact, as I awoke this morning a light snow was falling perfectly attesting that we are, indeed, "tween" the throes of winter and the glory days of Extravaganza 2010--just 70 (getting longer) days away now!

 

More to follow this coming week from the scene of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

    -----<'///><

 

The Rivers That We Fish

Extravagant Ones:

As Spring greets us (more or less), I thought I would take a moment to describe the rivers that we will be fishing during Extravaganza 2010 and give you an update on current Montana precipitation levels. 

 As to the latter first, the snow pack (which is the source of our fishing water during Montana's summer months) is currently well below "normal" (if there is such a thing nowadays), with precipitation levels in our barometer Bitterroot Mountain range posting at 59% of that norm (compared to last year's same time level of 98%) and with the adjacent Upper Clark Fork basin pegging in at 67% precipitation levels ( compared with last year's 103% readings).  That is moderately good news at this point in the season, as, while it portends excellent fishing for us during our prime time June and July Extravaganza dates, where, over the course of three weeks, we will put over 100 boats on the water and cover over 800 fishing miles (that's just about the distance between San Francisco and San Diego, gang!), it does not bode well for August fishing or possible troublesome fire conditions. [You Extravaganza 2007 veterans will recall the heat and low water during that low runoff of that year {and the fires that almost consumed Extravaganza headquarters} and you E-08 veterans will recall epically high runoff waters that year which forced our first two groups to abandon our local rivers and trek over the Continental Divide to fish the majestic Missouri River {with astounding fishing results, I might add!} (see the blogsites for those years, rookies, which are linked back on this year's blogsite ("Der Blog") ).]

During Extraganza 2010, as we have in the past, we will be targeting three primary rivers:  (a) The Clark Fork of the Columbia River; (b) the Bitterroot River; and (c) the Big "A River Runs Through It" Blackfoot River.  Each is carries a storied history of its own and, with each group fishing three  days, depending on fishing conditions and the disposition of your guide, you each might have the chance to fish one day on each.

The Clark Fork of the Columbia River is what I refer to as "the freeway river"--it is the river into which all others flow.  It is the river that Lewis & Clark traversed 200 years ago as they made their way westward (and eastward, btw), spending their second winter at Traveler's Rest in the current town of Lolo, just a short stroke from he confluence of the Clark Fork and the Bitterroot Rivers.  The Clark Fork flows right through Missoula in a westerly direction up into Canada, from where it winds its way to the Columbia's Cape Disappointment {named by Lewis & Clark} mouth; it is a huge-volume river with high banks, a meandering route and the home of legendary rainbow trout.  Just this past year the Milltown Dam at the confluence of the upstream Blackfoot River was removed as part of the largest Superfund cleanup site in the country and, over the last few years, due to the huge and high runoff and excess turbidity due to the dam's removal, it was a river that we could not and did not fish.   But, gang, I am pleased to report that "The Clark Fork is back!" and huge rainbow trout are again the order of the day as this river settles back into a new, regular pattern of activity.  

The second of our river trio, the 52 mile long Bitterroot River (by far the favorite river of most Montana guides due to its beauty and high fish production), will be our primary, targeted river for Extravaganza 2010.  Our outfitter, "John The Great" Gould, not only lives on this river but also he and his crew have solved the river's mysteries and have made fishing its bounty their primary bread and butter.  Flowing in an unusual northerly direction, as you fly into Missoula on Delta Air Lines from SLC it is the majestic Bitterroot Valley that will welcome each of you to its fishing haven.  "The Root" is still a very active river where, unlike the Clark Fork, each runoff season dramatically alters its course and contours, such that post-runoff (right when we are there) the fish and bug life in the water has been altered to unfamiliar settings, making our offering of dry flies and nymphs (more on that in a later update) more receptive to fish in new and unsettled waters.  Day after day, year after year, our nightly "Report From The Boats" (when each pair of fisherfolk betell the others of their day's adventures) features stories of twenty inch plus (i.e., Twenty Inch Club winners) fish and of dancing osprey, eagles, beaver and otters that filled the chapters of the day's book. [Rookies:  We have a special Twenty Inch Club perpetual signup board registered into which is each 20"+ fish caught (and released, as all of our fish are) and the largest fish caught each day earns the proud angler our Yellow Hat award of the day--a monogrammed baseball cap trophy that you take home with you for all to see and envy!]

The third river of our trilogy is the legendary Big Blackfoot River.  This is the most active and aggressively turbulent of the three rivers that we fish, and hardly nary a day is fished on it without a story of a huge cutthroat, brown trout or (rare and protected) bull trout being either seen, caught or missed.  For those that have seen our 2008 award-winning Extravaganza movie, "Journey To The Soul" (posted on YouTube in three parts--type in "Wildlife Films--Extravaganza"), it was on this river that then rookie Yellow Hat and Yellow Shirt (awarded for the biggest fish caught in each group) Jami Grassi hooked, lined and netted a 31" bull trout on her first-ever day of fly fishing.  Also, it is about this river that Norman Maclean wrote his prized novel A River Runs Through It (based on which the award-winning Robert Redford directed, Brad Pitt starring movie was made)--an epic that really sparked the fly fishing craze in the Western portion of the United States.  Both the book and the movie are worthy of your time, as you will be sharing with yourself the joys and journeys that they each depict.  This river flows in a southerly direction and joins the Clark Fork River at the town of Bonner, about five miles eastward of downtown Missoula, where the Bitterroot then joins.

No matter which of our three targeted rivers that you fish, each of your Extravaganza fishing days will be enjoyable ones, and from each you will bring home with you, forever, stories of sights and scenes that you simply haven't seen before.  As many times as I have fished these rivers over the last decade, no two days have ever been the same; each has been uniquely rewarding in its own right...and that's why (a) we fish them and (b) do so over and over again, only to do so even more!

Best to all in anticipation of it all, 

Rock Creek Ron----<'///><