In the Madison off Riverside Drive in the Park; caught a nifty passing storm to the west.

Tags: Pic of the Day

From cutthroat to steelhead country from fabrice on Vimeo.

Tags: Fish Stories

From the Tenkara USA blog….

The first Tenkara Summit in the US was a great success, over 100 people attended and enjoyed awesome presentations as well as an on-stream demonstration with Dr. Ishigaki. This will be a quick post. Even though the event is over, we’ve been sleeping little and fishing pretty hard today with the day starting at 6 and now being 12:40am.

Originally we had expected, optimistically, that about 70 people would show up. The conference room was setup to accommodate 100 people, but that was not enough. Over 100 people showed up yesterday. People came from 23 different states, and from 3 different countries specially for the Summit (well, they did come to fish in Montana…). I’d really like to thank all those who came and helped make this an extraordinary event; it was the best crowd ever. Thank you!

The Tenkara Summit had the presence of special guests Dr. Hisao Ishigaki, the leading authority on tenkara in Japan; Chris Stewart of tenkarabum.com; Craig Mathews of Blue Ribbon Flies who gave a very passionate presentation about tenkara in Montana and showed some great clips of large fishing being caught; Ryan Jordan of backpackinglight.com as well as ryanjordan.com; and Tom Sadler who spoke about the advantages of using tenkara as a guide and as a way to introduce new people to fly-fishing so they can continue conserving the environment in the future.

Read the full post here.

Image via TenkaraUSA – Dr Ishigaki, Yvon Chouinard and Craig Matthews

HT Tom Sadler at Dispatches from Middle River

Tags: Tenkara

During our last run back home to Montana Jake and I had a chance to revisit the “would you rather wade or float” conundrum.

A year ago we made decision to drag the team cataraft down to Austin from Bozeman, thinking we’d use it on some of the area water. We probably mostly had in the mind the Guadalupe during “the season”, the Llano, sections of the Colorado and some of the area lakes.

In hindsight it wasn’t the best choice to drag a boat down that was designed for big, fast flowing Western rivers.

It didn’t take many outings to learn that slow moving, tight, shallow waters more or less constantly buffeted by wind ain’t the best water for this craft.

So we hitched it up and sailed back to Montana, catching the morning’s full sun a few weeks ago outside of the metropolis of Lubbock above.

Dragging a trailer slowed our dash back home to somewhere in the vicinity of 30 hours. We had a bit of time to wax nostalgic on whether we’d rather wade or float.

Obviously one of those questions that has no truly right or wrong answer, the wade or float debate has teased me for years.

I’ve been fly fishing since 1985 and built my first drift boat in 1988. Living in the upper region of the Western Rockies more or less since then access to the big western “drift boat” rivers has been an oft taken for granted privilege.

There’s something just fun as hell about floating big water and having your one shot to get a fly right where it needs to be right now. 14 hour or better floats on the Missouri, the Green or the South Fork of the Snake were routine back in the day. It’s a pretty clean argument to say there’s no better way to cover a lot of water and fish through the day’s hatches.

(Though many fishers will disagree, learning to position a drifter or a raft in the right slot at the right time with minimal effort is a skill that most can’t / won’t master; when the fishing’s slow I’d rather row almost any day….)

We’ve certainly spent out share of time on what some call the circus rivers now – the Madison, Yellowstone, Missouri, Henry’s, the Green below Flaming Gorge – rivers where on a busy weekend you could almost walk down the river stepping from boat to boat without getting your feet week.

I don’t know if it’s been that crowded waters give me heartburn these days or that fishing for native fish in pristine smaller waters seems more like what I personally starting fishing for – but more and more bushwhacking smaller streams is what I’d rather be doing.

My fricken knee kept me from hobbling very far this last go round back home, but it was the small water fishing that I was pining for, though missing our planned time on the Missouri was a stab in the heart too.

Our answer to float vs. wade debate?

Embrace diversity. Do both.

And waders do have one distinct advantage in not having to deal with boat storage.

After putting the tongue of the trailer through the windshield, we found that the only way we could get the raft trailer and the jeep in storage was to open the hood of the jeep so that the trailer corner could just clear.

Made all the difference with just about 2 inches to spare.

With all the grunting, groaning and cussing done we did what any sane fisher would do. We headed down to Yellowstone and wade fished some of our fav smaller waters.

No launch, no shuttles, no arguments over who’s rowing the next mile, no breaking the boat down when we’re done.

While we didn’t land any 28 inch trophies like Ivan’s, the fishing was mighty fine for spunky 8 inchers nonetheless.

And despite July and early August being crushingly crowded in Yellowstone, we never saw another angler all day.

Some days less is truly more.

Tags: Inquiring Minds Want to Know

For the men and women in the Northern Rockies whose livelihood and / or sanity depends upon access to summer fly fishing water, the early summer season has been interminable.

River flows have been record breaking in many watersheds. For weeks. And weeks.

The last few days have offered a glimmer of hope though. Flows at least in the greater Yellowstone zone are beginning to trickle down a bit.

The Gallatin is headed in the right direction…..

As is the Firehole, though on the warm sunny days the lower Firehole is already beginning to heat up to ‘don’t fish me’ ranges…..

While the Missouri is still fishing at near record flows, the main inflow into Canyon Ferry – of course the Missouri – is slowing notably. Flows through the system and finally out of Holter should be headed down before too long (hopeful thinking)….

One of the few we could find still headed up was the Upper Yellowstone at Fishing Bridge – no surprise given the astounding snowpack still down in that neck of the woods.

Bottom line, the trend is your friend.

And the river flow trend is looking better.  Finally.

Tags: Inquiring Minds Want to Know

The most current reporting dealing with the Yellowstone River Oil Spill we can dig up this morning includes this report from the Billings Gazette – Oil Cleanup Continues on the Yellowstone River and a press release today from the EPA (written yesterday and released today).

Clearly as flows drop, pending spikes potentially to be induced by thunderstorms in this week’s forecast, oil spoiled riparian zones will begin to be exposed and a much clearer picture of the damage caused by the spill will come into view.

For what it’s worth (and that’s not much) our guess is the first 25 to 30 miles of riparian zone damage below the spill will be ugly.

The Gazette reports that Exxon now has upwards of 600 workers on the ground and presents a fairly rationale assessment of efforts ongoing currently.

Interestingly the mainstream media seems to have moved on with very little coverage of the spill noted on any portal today. Without graphic evidence of a first rate catastrophe to be found last week they’ve drifted away in fact just as the subtle damage that really impacts a river system will be revealed by subsiding river flows.

River flows at Billings are down notably, as are major upstream inputs from the Lamar, Soda Butte (via the Lamar) and the Gardner Rivers. Flows at Fishing Bridge are slowly increasing but the spill impacted river’s finally on the way down it would appear.

Tags: Damn!

Trout Unlimited’s Statement on the ExxonMobil Oil Spill in the Yellowstone River near Billings, Mont.

Trout Unlimited deplores the spill of oil, equal to at least 1,000 barrels, into one of America’s most treasured rivers, the Yellowstone.

On July 1, an ExxonMobil pipeline running underneath the Yellowstone River outside of Laurel, Mont., burst, spewing a reported 1,000 barrels of oil into one of the nation’s favorite free-flowing rivers. Staff from the Montana state resource agencies are now trying to assess the damages to people living near the river, communities such as Laurel adjacent to it, as well as the fish and wildlife populations sustained by it. So far, we do not know the extent of the damage to this internationally revered river, known for its origins in Yellowstone National Park, beautiful scenic vistas, and blue-ribbon quality trout fishing. As stewards of cold, clean, fishable water, Trout Unlimited and especially staff from its state council, Montana Trout Unlimited, are monitoring the situation and will do so as long as there is oil in the river.

We call on ExxonMobil, owner of the damaged pipeline, to work with the State of Montana and the EPA to fully assess all damages to individuals, communities and fish and wildlife in the watershed. Once a full and complete assessment is finished, we urge ExxonMobil to fully compensate all damaged parties and make every possible effort to restore fish and wildlife resources destroyed by the spill. We further recommend that ExxonMobil work with the state to assess and improve the safety of all the company’s pipeline crossings in Montana. TU believes it is reasonable to ensure that all gas and oil pipelines in the state be designed using the best available technology. This accident proves that we cannot be too diligent when it comes to protecting our water resources and all that depend on them.The stretch of river between Laurel and Billings, which appears to have experienced the worst impacts of the spill, is downstream of the famed blue-ribbon trout reach of the upper Yellowstone River. While this may provide limited comfort, this stretch of water is a transition zone from cold to warm-water fish species, meaning it contains some rainbow and brown trout populations as well as additional sportfish that are important to Montana anglers, including native sauger, goldeye and channel catfish. Likewise, this stretch is home to locally important non-native game fish such as smallmouth bass and walleye.

While the most well-known stretch of the Yellowstone has escaped this catastrophe, Montana’s anglers are not without concern for what is a well-utilized fishery. Of particular interest to TU and other conservation-minded sportsmen and women is a population of one of North America’s rarest fishes, the pallid sturgeon, which occurs downstream in the Yellowstone River below Miles City. Potential effects of the spill on this endangered native will be influenced by the spread and persistence of the oil plume. On July 5, the river was running at 55,000 cubic feet per second, just below flood stage. TU volunteers discovered that oil is now evident in wheat fields at least 40 miles downriver near a state wildlife management area and the Pompey’s Pillar National Monument, a landmark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

It is too early to tell, however, what impacts the spill will have on the Yellowstone’s fishery. Owing to intense flooding, both impact monitoring and the clean-up response have been significantly hampered by dangerous river conditions. Aerial observations and anecdotal reports suggest that back channels and flooded fields are seeing the largest quantities of oil, causing a pungent stench reported by many landowners. As the flooding recedes, this toxic oil could easily be deposited in important shallow-water spawning and rearing habitat.

There are also concerns of bio-accumulation for predators that feed on fish such as eagles, osprey, and kingfishers. Toxic components of oil, such as benzene, could also threaten macro invertebrates and larval fish. Oil deposition may harm other wildlife such as amphibians, turtles, waterfowl, mink, muskrats and beavers. The extent and severity of these impacts depends largely on where and when the oil is deposited, and how extensive the clean-up efforts are. Both Trout Unlimited and Montana Trout Unlimited will continue to hold ExxonMobil accountable for the damage it caused and for cleaning up the spill.

What has happened in the Yellowstone River demonstrates the significant risks of allowing energy development and pipeline infrastructure so close to America’s treasured places to hunt and fish. The type of crossing technique used for this pipeline did not employ the best and safest technology available. The pipeline, according to ExxonMobil sources, was buried in depositional material in the riverbed. This rendered the site prone to hydraulic scouring, thereby potentially exposing the pipe to material moving down the river in the high flows Montana is experiencing this summer. The company has stated it still has not determined what went wrong with this pipeline. However, company spokesmen said that safer alternatives could have been deployed at this site.

This week’s events come as Congress gears up to debate funding for the nation’s natural resource agencies, and during a year where we have seen some elected officials in Congress move to weaken our country’s fundamental natural resource protections such as the Clean Water Act. This spill highlights the need to maintain these vital resource protections, as well as the need for effective conservation programs that protect fish habitat and restore streams that have been damaged through years of irresponsible use. We call on Congress to recognize these important protections and conservation investments as essential to ensure that plentiful fishing and hunting opportunities in the nation’s most treasured landscapes and watersheds remain pristine for future generations.

Link

Tags: Damn!

Interview video featuring several speakers including Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer.

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Here’s a couple of solid quotes from the vid -

… that Montana — well, Montana’s interests aren’t perfectly aligned with ExxonMobil’s and the EPA’s.

Our interests are for the wealth and the health of the Yellowstone River, the people of Montana and future generations. And theirs are to limit liability for their shareholders…..

….Well, it will never be enough.

Of course, we’re expecting a full cleanup, that the Yellowstone River will be completely restored. And, of course, ExxonMobil has repeated over and over that they are financially responsible to those state and federal agencies that are involved in this cleanup and ultimately the private landowners along the river.

So, it’s a wait-and-see attitude. To paraphrase from President Reagan, with this company, we will verify and — and verify……

And from the Politico -

“We Montanans take our wildlife and our rivers very serious,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “I can tell you right now, I am gonna stay on this like smell on a skunk until it’s cleaned up.”

Not everybody’s happy with the Guv and the response thus far; an exec for the National Wildlife Federation – Alexis Bogonofsky, is an affected landowner downstream from the spill. Her plight has just happened to make it onto the NWF website complete with all the handwringing and angst you’d expect. Perhaps Allison hasn’t heard the skunk quote from the Guv.

Little known fact about Gov. Schweitzer – he has a degree in soil science therefore expect him to roll up his sleeves and dig into (clumsy metaphor) testing data with more personal fervor that any other governor around.  Go, Brian go.

The river, as you’d expect, continues to roll on briskly.

Tags: Damn!

The smartest thing we read so far regarding the 1000 barrel Yellowstone River oil spill comes from Flathead country, through the thoughtful reasoning of Wayne at Will Fish For Work.

Read the entire post here, though the money paragraph is the third one -

I think this would be good time for Montanan’s to demand an immediate relocation of all three pipelines that currently make underwater crossings on the Yellowstone. Did anyone think about a bridge or was that asking these oil companies to dig to far into their pitiful little ol’ bank accounts?

Funny, the governor mentioned attending to other major pipelines crossing rivers in a presser yesterday. Maybe he follows fly fishing blogs.

Big rivers like the Yellowstone scour when they’re in flood; locating pipelines a matter of feet beneath the river bottom just seems asinine, or as Wayne notes – “is just asking for an ass kicking”.

Meanwhile, ground and ariel damage / contamination surveys are in process, the guv is visiting today and the national media is not wasting another opportunity to tout the evils of big oil.

And the river continues to roll…..

Tags: Damn!

From Reuters -

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer questioned Exxon’s contention that the spill into the Yellowstone, the longest undammed river in the United States, was concentrated within a 10-mile area.

“This is a lot of wild country, and they haven’t any idea whether it’s 5 miles, 50 miles or 100 miles, they’re guessing,” Schweitzer, a Democrat, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

A full assessment of the oil’s spread will not be possible until small boats can be deployed in the river, he said.

And from the LA Times -

An estimated 750 to 1,000 barrels, or up to 42,000 gallons, spilled through a damaged pipeline in the riverbed, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said. The break near Billings could be related to the river’s high water level, officials said.

More than 120 people were working on the cleanup late Sunday, Jeffers said. But local officials said because of the raging floodwaters, only a handful of crews were laying absorbent pads and booms to trap the oil along short stretches of the river between Billings and Laurel. In some areas, residents said, oil may be flowing underneath the booms and continuing downstream in the murky water.

Jeffers said most of the oil was believed to be within 10 miles of the spill site, and Exxon crews were flying over the area late Sunday to assess how far it had spread since the Friday night spill.

But Montana’s governor disputed the 10-mile estimate.

“Nobody can say definitively,” Gov. Brian Schweitzer said. “It’s too early. We need boats on the water,” not just flyovers. Because of the high water, however, boats were potentially unsafe.

Quick summary of points this morning -

1. The Guv’s pissed. Thumbs up. BS (Brian Schweitzer) is headed to the scene tomorrow.
2. Clean up / mitigation response has been slow to form up over the holiday weekend, both on the part of Exxon and to a lesser degree the state teams. Thumbs down.
3. Local media, with the exception of the Billings Gazette, appears content running AP, Reuters and AlJazeera (yep, the vid was uploaded by AlJazeera English) stories. Fluff pieces on tonight’s fireworks and the weather appear much more important – at least in Bozeman. Thumbs down.
4. National and international media continue to sensationalize the event and appear to not have a clue where the leak occurred in relation to Yellowstone National Park. Idiots.
5. National media, ie the New York Times and LA Times, suddenly find Montana of useful interest (bash big oil) instead of their typically portraying the state as a slobbering clan of red-shirted, wolf-killing, firearm-bearing, rednecked, uneducated Neanderthals. We’d venture that an overwhelming majority of said national media types couldn’t locate Billings, Laurel, Livingston or Yellowstone NP on a map if their lives depended on it. And the overwhelming majority of Montanans like it that way.
6. The Yellowstone River is still roaring, though flows are down a bit from yesterday.

Tags: Damn!

There’s an image and a blog headline we never figured we’d be posting here.

Yesterday found our team otherwise engaged (we were all working at various posts) when the news broke of a pipeline rupture / leak beneath the mighty Yellowstone River.

Our first reaction – dammit to hell.

Didn’t really start digging into the story until late last evening and again this morning, and as one might expect given the fact that it’s the 4th of July weekend and located in the wilds of Montana, the story coverage has been somewhat long on hyperbole and short on details.

Mention the words ‘Yellowstone River’ and ‘oil spill’ and the images that come to mind are that of a genuine environmental disaster. That’s probably why the BBC and NYT have stories about the spill running today.

And this is an environmental disaster. And probably an administrative one as well given that warnings to communities downstream were issued late or not all in the early hours of the spill.

It’s one thing to read about a spill in the GOM or in some far away state, but dump in one of my rivers – dammit now we’re pissed.

We’ve got an inbox full of emails this morning asking about fly fishing impacts from the spill. Some will not doubt call us assholes for looking at this from a fisherman’s point of view. So be it.

Note that we’re far, far from experts on the Yellowstone river, though we’ve dug up a few tidbits of information that will help frame the issues a bit.

The pipeline at fault is located near Laurel, a small community basically just west of Billings. From the Billings Gazette coverage this morning, and they have a special section up on the spill here, it appears oil has already traveled as far east as Miles City.

On the map below, we’ve marked the spill contaminated length of the river in red.

From a fisheries standpoint, the section of the Yellowstone (outside of Yellowstone National Park) that you read about and probably (at least among our readers anyway) picture as the traditional fly fishing Yellowstone River water is marked in blue. Obviously that’s everything north of the Park through Livingston and on to Big Timber.

We’re a bit hazy on the exact delineation here, but local custom has it that below the Pelican Access (east of Big Timber near Greycliff) the river becomes more or less a warm water fishery. There are points, notably where other bigger tribs come in, that trout exist is larger numbers, but by and large the river slows and transitions to a warm water river. That’s marked in yellow on the map above.

The Yellowstone drainage in the area is a huge one as you can see from this Montana DNR map.

Finally, to garner a bit of perspective, a look at current flows on the river is helpful. From the chart grabbed a few minutes ago this morning the Yellowstone is roaring along right now at 57,100 cfs at Billings.

Convert that to gallons and the number is damned impressive – there were 427,108 gallons of water flowing past the measuring stick per second this morning.

The spill has been reported to have been anywhere from 750 to 1000 barrels; take the higher number and note that amounts to 42,000 gallons of crude. Dammit.

I’ve already pestered a friend who’s a recovery hydrologist in Utah for projections on how this might all shake out; he’s asked that I not use his name here. He happens to also be an avid and genuine expert fly fisherman.

He notes several key issues to ponder.

One, the oil flow has been stopped at this point; lines typically have shutoffs on either side of a river. River flow has some impact on the contamination as does the nature of the crude spilled. Heavier crude will likely be dispersed to slower flows (eddy lines, flooded pasture and shoreline brush, etc.) which could make cleanup a bit easier, as compared to a widespread dispersal in the flow.

With some mixed emotion he noted this, in the perspective of oil spills, is a small one that will be swept under the rug by the oil companies as per routine. He went on to suggest that heavier crude that settled will be picked up, ‘volatiles’ will evaporate into the atmosphere, and a massive dilution effect will take water bound contaminants down to ‘acceptable’ levels downstream.

He predicted Exxon and the pipeline operator will buy cooperative silence from the affected landowners and some wonderfully rich Yellowstone bottomland soil will be carted off, likely to the mine contaminant sequestration areas a few hundred miles west.

My friend went on to ponder that mining interests in Montana have done far worse damage to Montana waterways than petroleum interests have and went on to remind me that living with extraction industries always presents a two edged sword for man and beast (and fish) coexisting in the neighborhood.

Dammit. He’s right.

And dammit, we’re still pissed.

Tags: River - Yellowstone

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

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?

Tags: Water on the Brain

Tags: Events