Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Jammin' on the Gallatin

Winter fishers are familiar with ice jams. They can restrict flow, wedge a section of river with huge ice chunks and create 10-foot-plus-tall banks when the ice thaws. It can also cause dangerous floods, as shown in the video below. A fisherman had to be saved by Search and Rescue last month when one broke upstream of him.

Furthermore, friend and fellow-blogger Will Jordan reported that when he fished the Gallatin Canyon last weekend he saw floating fish in many holes. An inquiry with FWP revealed it was apparently the result of the flood (although other reports said the fishing was EXTREMELY good for the next few days). Here's hoping the kill wasn't too great an event.

There are times when anglers make poor decisions and get themselves in hairy situations, but something like this is hard to predict. My best advice would be to stay off islands and close to the banks if you know you're fishing below an ice jam. And get your line in the water ASAP afterward.

7 comments:

Feather Chucker said...

Really cool video. Never seen anything like that before.

Josh Bergan said...

Me either. Can you imagine that bearing down on you as you nymph a run?

Feather Chucker said...

Josh, With those condition I doubt you could get out of the way quickly. I'm not sure what I would do. Probably wad as fast as I could and dive for the bank. There was a bend down stream that might stop you from getting in too much trouble. Those large chunks of ice would make it scary if you went under.

Unknown said...

Coooooool

Will Jordan said...

You stole my thunder, I was going to post about this last night with this same video... you beat me to it.

I saw dead fish, dozens of them in some holes (Hog Alley was one of the worst), but they weren't floating - they were on the bottom. Maybe the fishing was extremely good in subsequent days, but you have to consider the source...

Josh Bergan said...

Boom. What? Holla! Scooped.

Fly Waters Edge - Kevin said...

Damn'd if that wouldn't make you wet your waders if you were standing in the wrong spot.