We’ve been fielding a lot of calls lately about our snow pack so we wanted to relay some information to all those coming out to Montana this summer.
Background:
One of the reasons so many people love to fly fish Montana is that we have wild rivers and wild trout. A large portion of our Montana streams and rivers are freestones, which means no dams. In the spring when all the snow melts out of the mountains it floods the rivers and renders a majority unfishable for weeks at a time. You know all that water that the Mississippi is getting – a lot of it starts from the snow melts here. Hence, the term run-off season substitue construction season if you live in a city. If you come to Montana in late May through June chances are you’ll have some serious run-off issues to deal with. However, one of the great things about Montana is the variety of waters. Spring creeks and tailwaters (those with dams) are less effected by this annual event, but tailwaters can still have big flows and virtually no wading opportunities.
Current Conditions:
We are at 1997 water/snow levels. We use this date as a benchmark because we had a 100 year flood event through a majority of the waters in the state. Now we’re sure the weather guys are going to be ‘readjusting’ that event as it was only 14 years ago and it looks like we might have another one. We are watching it closely as many waters in 1997 had major flood issues and didn’t fish at all until August.
Currently the National Weather Service has projected that due to La Nina Montana will likely experience a cooler and wetter June than normal. This seems to be true as we’ve had little snow melt due to warm weather and there’s still plenty of snow in the hills – 180% of normal snow water equivalent in the upper Yellowstone drainage right now.
What does the Mean to Anglers:
Most importantly there will be good fishing throughout Montana no matter what happens remember all the variety we mentioned earlier. So come fishing whenever works best for your schedule, but you might have to be flexible on where and how you fish. If you only like to fish the Yellowstone River we recommend pushing your fishing dates until late July, August or September – which should fish exceptionally well with all the water we are going to have. If you are coming in June or early July make sure to plan ahead and book some private water (or just call us and we’ll do it for you) as those reservation will be hard to come by in the next week or so.
So that’s the prerun-off scenario right now, but don’t worry we’ll keep you posted with videos and photos sure to follow…
Montana Fly Fishing Guides’ very own Andy Watson shot AllPro NFL receiver #85 Chad Ochocinco of the Cincinnati Bengals last weekend as Chad attempted to ride the bull Deja Blu.
When Andy isn’t guiding fly fishermen he’s the owner of Bull Stock Media, the official photographer for the PBR (Professional Bull Riders). Number 85 was talking a big game, which is certainly his specialty, about riding the 1,500 lb bull. However, Deja Blu only allowed Ochocinco a short ride of 1.5 seconds, well short of the full 8 seconds. For his efforts Chad received $10,000 which he generously donated to Feed the Children along with a new Ford F-150 that he’s donating to one of his Twitter followers.
“I feel good. It was fun,” the healthy but humbled Ochocinco said, “I can cross riding a bull off my bucket list. This sport doesn’t get enough credit. The guys who do this week in and week out deserve the utmost respect. They should be the highest-paid athletes in sports.” We couldn’t agree more!
To check out all the details check out these links from TMZ or Yahoo Sports.
Andy had a great time working closely with Chad the two days prior to the ride and said he couldn’t have been more humble, attentive and all around a fun guy to spend some time with. Ochocinco enjoyed his time so much he’s headed to the Pueblo PBR event again this weekend in Pueblo, as a spectator this time, and Andy’s got another chance to get some great photos before the bulls slow down and fishing season starts up. Maybe Andy can convince Chad to do something less life threatening, like fly fishing this summer.
If you enjoy the PBR or would like to check it out for the first time make sure to join us in Livingston, Montana this July 27th! Make sure to check out the Bull Stock Media Facebook page to learn more about upcoming events.
- somewhere near the water via iPad
If you’re like us and enjoy Montana fly fishing duh?!, this will be the best 10 minutes you spend all day. We guarrantee it!
This video is a first hand look at the water and trout in their natural setting and was first brought to our attention by the boys at Sweaty Waders. Along with some insight into some major threats to the Yellowstone Cutthroat’s survival.
Make sure to hang in there until Mike Kasic starts swimming with the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout in the Yellowstone River and throughout Yellowstone National Park.
No wonder so many of us guides, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts live right here – simply AWESOME.
Whether or not you live in Montana House Bill 309 is a full on slap in the face to ALL anglers who visit this great state. If you fish in Montana and want to continue in the future you should stay up to date on this topic. Don’t let an elite few ruin it for everyone just because they have enough money (and twisted ideals) to continually buy lawyers, state representative and lawmakers in an attempt to subvert this great access law.
We won’t try to rehash the great foundation already laid down on this topic by The Trout Underground, ChiWulff, and WillWorkForFish (which you should make time to read). However, in short this newly proposed law seeks to redefine the concept of what constitutes a “ditch”. In essence the language outlines a course where side channels of rivers and entire rivers can be deemed a ditch and therefore private.
Even Bob Lane, Chief Legal Counsel for Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP), is opposed to the new bill stating, “HB309 not only doesn’t work, it just doesn’t make any sense.” No confusing double talk lawyer language there.
Pure and simple HB309 is less valuable than the paper it was written on. However, just because it pisses us off and doesn’t make real world sense doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stay up to date – we suggest you should as well. Let’s keep Montana’s Stream Access Law the best in the country!
How many Whitefish are under that boat?
As you can imagine this time of year for Montana fly fishing guides can be a bit tough. While most of us are enjoying some down time by tying flies, skiing, traveling (mostly to fish), or working that off season job – we still can’t help talking about fishing. Recently, a couple of Livingston guides Tony V, Jeff Pavlovich and Eric Adams took a road trip to Helena, Montana to look at the some of the new Adipose Boatworks drift boats – which are awesome by the way.
On the drive Jeff and Adams had a conversation with veteran guide Tony V, who’s going on close to 20 years. As usual our topic turned to fishing, guiding and drift boats.
It went something like:
Jeff: “How long have you been guiding Adams”?
Adams: “I think it’s been 10 or 11 years.”
Jeff: “How ’bout you V”?
Tony V: “I think about 15,000 river miles.”
Jeff & Adams: “HA, right!”
Tony V: “No seriously, at about 1,000 to 1,200 miles per year I think that pretty conservative.”
Insert long pause for Jeff & Adams to do the math (100+ days a season X 10-12 river miles per day).
Adams: “I think I could buy that, but the real question is how many trout do you think you’ve floated by”?
Tony V: “Forget trout, how about whitefish.”
Everyone laughs, then thinks about it. Group math ensues (using all our fingers and toes).
Jeff: “Yeah, I think it’s about 150 million whitefish.”
Adams: “No way”
Tony V: “FWP surveys say about 10,000 whitefish/mile, so that’s about right.”
After a brief solemn silence…
Adams: “I really don’t want to think about my ratio of trout caught/whitefish floated over – that’s going to UGLY.”
Tony V: “Well maybe for you it would be.”
Jeff laughs in the background, Adams gives V. the evil eye and the conversation degrades quickly from here with jibs about each others guide abilities and the like.
Here’s to some much needed Montana fly fishing this spring which will hopefully but ‘stir-crazy’ in the background!
Angler’s coming to Montana to fly fish may literally have to step into a pair of new shoes. It’s not a law yet, but there is a proposed bill that is circulating in the Montana Legislature. This bill, if enacted, would ban felt on Montana Rivers as early as the fall of 2011, but there’s wide discussion and a bit of controversy right now. Here’s our interpretation and stance on the discussion.
It’s well known that Alaska has banned felt soled wading shoes on its rivers starting January 1st, 2012. Many Western States are now following suite by proposing similar legislation. Current science leaves little doubt that felt, with it’s porous nature, is an especially good vehicle for transporting a number of Aquatic Nuisance Species (ANS). These species include Whirling Disease, New Zealand Mud Snail, Zebra Mussel, Didymo and a number of other lesser-known’s that are just as threatening. So why would anyone disagree with a felt ban in Montana or anywhere else for that matter?
In our observations few anglers are against actively working toward preventing ANS. However, those opposed to this particular argument generally fall into two camps that we’ll call safety and effectiveness.
Safety concerns are certainly a valid argument. To our knowledge there is currently only one alternative to felt soles, rubber soles. All of the major manufacturers have developed various versions of rubber soled wading shoes. We’ve been privy to a number of these version and some prototypes. In our experience rubber is noticeably unstable compared to felt, however there are a couple of these compounds actually as good or better (we’ll save that discussion for later). While most anglers who’ve tried non-felt wading shoes are not convinced of its stability it’s a rather poor case to base an argument upon. By such logic one would rather fish a stream with slightly more stable wading conditions even though it’s so contaminated with ANS there are few healthy trout within its banks.
The other camp is one that states felt isn’t the only material to transport ANS – so banning it won’t be effective. This camp often sites even without felt shoelaces, porous canvas, socks, neoprene feet on waders and drift boats can also transport ANS. Few would argue their point. However, we would suggest that those adhering to this camp read this scientific paper. To summarize the researchers results felt contained the Didymo ANS 3,000 times more than rubber soles furthermore the leather uppers and neoprene held drastically reduced numbers of the ANS. This doesn’t suggest a lack of knowledge on this camps argument, but again the short-sided nature of their stance. While this camp correctly states that banning felt will not solve the problem we contend it also won’t exacerbate the problem.
This is a broad and complex ecological issue with a number of socio-economic impacts. However, if one looks at the ban on felt as the beginning of a solution to the problem then it appears to make good sense. While this is our take on this issue we welcome discussion and debate. So make sure to post your thoughts on the possible ban of felt in Montana.
Educate yourself with these great resources:
The Montana Felt Ban Bill
ANS Task Force
Aquatic Nuisance Species Project
Clean Angling Coalition
Center for Aquatic Nuisance Species
