Glancing at forecast for Southwest Montana brought a smile to my face this morning, as often happens in March and April.
Spring is definitely elbowing its way into the Northern Rockies. Friends in SLC are skiing powder in the mornings and playing golf or getting gardens ready in town that afternoon.
‘Down south’, in warmer the locales of Utah, southern Idaho and Wyoming, spring bulbs have broken ground and in favored locations are already boasting arrays of color heartily welcome after the snows of winter.
Sun-starved denizens of the North, of both two and four-legged varieties, have greeted the warming spring sun with a smile, though there are a few of us who save the biggest smiles for the spring days bringing clouds and cool breezes, even better with drizzle, rain and snow.
For those cool, cloudy, drizzling spring days bring forth the Blue Winged Olives.
When the blues are rolling it seems even the most modestly endowed stretch of your favorite creek, stream or river comes to life, planting visions of the full smorgasbord of hatches to come while quickly proving how rusty your tiny dry fly skills are this early in the year.
To top it off, you can trade finicky, tiny dries for elegant soft hackles fished using an old-school swing and lift, all with the rain or corn snow patterning off your hood. And the fair weather fishers are nowhere to be seen.
Hot damn, I like the Springtime Blues.
