Tags: Pic of the Day

As unlikely as it might sound, we’re entering one of my favorites times to be on the water back home – those weeks (pending the year) that the rivers run clear and cold before they ice up completely in the depth of the winter freeze.

The combination of low river flows, the winter sunlight, unique combinations of anchor and shore ice and who knows what the hell else has made for some interesting river images over the years.

Yep, it’s cold and you’ll need to take some extra precautions with gear. (Personal best minor frostbite trip – snapping the images above on the Gallatin…..)

Get out there and see a river world most fly fishers never even imagine. Then you’ll really appreciate that bonefish trip to Belize coming up……

Tags: Photography

Tags: River - Gallatin

Tags: Pic of the Day

The latest issue of Trout Line from the Montana Council of TU is out (interestingly tagged the Spring 2011 issue).

There are several article of note including a summary (from TU’s point of view of course) of the tumultuous 2010-2011 Montana state legislative season (the now infamous season of HB 309, HB 433 and SB 344, among others….).

Montana TU very appropriately recognizes the role that Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer played in vetoing several lousy pieces of legislation affecting fishers and fisheries – the branding iron veto was a nice touch.

Team Chi Wulff is particularly appreciative of the job that TU’s Mark Aagenes did battling the lunacy that seemed to prevail for much of the season in Helena.

The newsletter also highlights a new access on the Gallatin River near Logan that will feature special adaptations for mobility impaired individuals. The driving force behind the project is the seemingly indestructible Bud Lilly who had veterans in mind when envisioning the new access. Well done team Bud.  Montana FWP has had a hand in this one as well…..

Tags: Fish Stories

Tags: Pic of the Day

Trying to hold to a reasonable standard of optimism, given that July is a couple of days away and that river flow trends had been looking a tiche better over the past few days, yesterday we planned to post this morning a few area river flows that had been improving.

That post was to have been titled The Trend IS Your Friend.

A hot sunny day in southwest Montana (93 in Bozeman yesterday, 90 in Missoula) changed that reality pretty quickly.

Tailwaters are still your friend these days – SOL has the skinny on the Missouri here.

Tags: Weather

Still on the road playing hooky with She Who Must Be Obeyed in the mountain West.

By virtue of an ambitious plan to head back home to Montana for a few days we’ve had the pleasure of seeing more than a handful of western waterways up close and personal. I can’t remember how long it’s been since we’ve seen this much water flowing in so many rivers.

There’s more than a healthy snowpack in southwestern Colorado.

They’re still skiing (that’s downhill skiing) at Snowbird and Snow Basin in Utah and the Uintah’s and much of northern Utah’s high country are still buried.

When it comes to Wyoming, Yellowstone country and Montana – most of the old timers that we rub shoulders with can’t remember this much mid and high level snow in the hills the week before the 4th of July.

Those that can remember the last snowpack like this one have to reach back decades to recall (or pretend to) this amount of water waiting to come out.

The amount of snow on the ground in the southern part of Yellowstone is damned impressive.  Even She Who Must Be Obeyed’s iPhone pic more or less captures the snowfields remaining south of Lewis Lake on the south entrance road.

Our return to home country happened to coincide with the arrival of the first warm (high 70s and lower 80s) and full day sunny days of the year. Combine the much anticipated arrival of summer with the area’s monumental snowpack and you get flow charts that look like the Gallatin’s today…..

One of the joys of running a small business is that opportunities and challenges ebb and flow like insect hatches.

You know the (bugs and) opportunities are there, you know they’ll show up sooner or later and you know damned well that they’re not going to be absolutely predictable.

We’ve been working on a project in southwestern Colorado and had something evolve very favorably while on the road that led us to head back down south to spend a few days in Ouray and then into Durango over the weekend.

If water had been fishable in the Bozeman neighborhood, we’d have stayed in a heartbeat. I’ve had a nasty itch to fish a free stone stream, even it’s in the muddy edges, and that’s about to happen again this afternoon and evening.

We had to pass up a nice invite from Mark R. at the Headhunters shop in Craig to run over and fish the very fishable (even it’s very high) Missouri right now. Dammit. That’l happen in a few weeks.

Jake and I are headed back up in a few weeks and will make up for some lost fishing opportunity; we’re doing the Montana summer sun dance every day so maybe flows will have settled by then.

Tags: Damn!

Tags: Events

I’d be an absolute lying dog if I didn’t admit that She Who Must Be Obeyed and I were as happy as clams to be back in home country.

It’s fairly easy to get a little road rash making the drive from Austin back home to Bozeman in two days, though SWMBO held up well and by the time we saw Monday’s afternoon sun on the Winds we knew we were finally get back into real home country.

There were traffic delays of human and bison origin in Yellowstone, as you’d damned well expect for this time of year.

What’s no doubt the most amazing is the incredible snow pack remaining in the region.  It’s one thing to look at the maps and data charts but quite another to see it first hand.

We’ve not lived in this country forever (just since ’84) but haven’t seen this much snow down low in the 4th week of June in some time.  Hells bells, there are still 6 to 8 foot (or larger) drifts in the southern part of Yellowstone right now, despite the days of recent sun and almost seasonal temps.

There is an amazing amount of mid level snow still around the local environs, which will all be coming out soon given the weather forecast.

As you might expect most water is blown all to hell;  a bright sunny day yesterday with temps in the 70s (at least here in Bozeman) pushed flows on every river I’ve checked this morning.  The Gallatin rose almost a foot during the evening and night, with other rivers soaring as well.

Take heart, there are mayfly hatches on the Missouri and some of the mid level and higher lakes are open;  be ready for some mud and lace up the boots.

There’s always time for a great breakfast.

We’ll grab a few more river pics today and chat with some of the fishing compadres.

At least one good friend has headed to Louisiana to do some redfishing.  Hot damn.

Tags: So What?

A few images from a riffle on the upper Gallatin taken one bright late September day last year.  Amazing what a difference a bit of fiddling with settings can invoke.  Here’s to pretty little riffles on pretty little rivers.

On the road early today for a little work and a little play.  Should have some pics of a few bass taken from the cataraft later today or tomorrow.  Here’s to a productive day.

Tags: River - Gallatin

allbozeman.com – Fly Fishing with Gary Jones from Eric Keto on Vimeo.

Tags: River - Gallatin

Pics of the day from Jess at Fire Girl Photography.

Moonrise over the upper Gallatin just below Yellowstone’s northern boundary.

And below, catching a little evening saddle bronc action in Gardiner after fishing the northeast corner last year.

Tags: Pic of the Day

Gallatin River, South of Big Sky, Montana, a few days after the frost hit the pumpkin.

Tags: Pic of the Day

We love water.

We could look at, listen to, stand in and smell water all day long.

Now and again we’ll be posting some of our favorite water shots from out and about in the new category Water on the Brain.

[Our further thanks to the giants of the Brownline movement has been delayed by a skirmish with the flu over the past 18 hours - I'll have it up in the next day or two....]

Tags: Water on the Brain