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| The stretch of the Madison below Hebgen was clear until Cabin Creek had something to say about it. |
The mountain snow is melting. This weekend, we were kind of in that no-man's land where the river's are mostly too high and muddy to fish, but most of our favorite mountain lakes aren't quite de-iced. We went to Hebgen yesterday hoping to drop some Buggers off the ice edge, but there wasn't much open water. Where there was, there were fishermen so we kept driving and ended up at Quake Lake, where we found a little spot of open water with trout.
Both Hebgen and Quake should be fishable this week. They had both started peeling back, and both lost quite a bit as we sat there yesterday.
Today, I took a little drive along the East Gallatin - it's impressive.
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| Upstream from Hamilton Road. |
It's flowing at 1,280 cfs - the previous highest for today was 679 (granted it's only from nine years of record). It's well over its banks in many places and will be interesting to see when it's over. Talked to a gentleman who apparently lives there, and he said he's only ever seen it like this a couple of times. I hope the fish don't get washed away.
6 comments:
As people seem to be fast to say - "It'll be a good water year." Here in the southern Winds, we had a big runoff year in 2010. Rivers weren't fishable until right around July 4, but the rest of the year was incredible. Big runoff means lots of new habitat, scoured out pools, and a re-energized macroinvertebrate community. Get ready for some fun.
Big blowouts = fantastic fishing. As schnitzer mentioned it is kind of like a fresh start.
-stephanie
Yes and yes. Some friends and I were talking about how many skwalas we'd seen all over the place this year, and decided it was likely the healthy flows. Here's a column I wrote year or so ago about good water years.
At least you're not in Tahoe, but the fishing here and there will go off when the water comes down. Can't wait.
Hi, I just stumbled across your blog and started following it. We don't get much mountain run off here in Cincinnati, but we sure have gotten a lot of rain here. Tight lines!
Thanks JGR. Do you ever fish the Little Miami? I know a bit about it since we made a map for it at work.
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