New Year is Almost Here

Resolutions abound! Too many are needed!

I had a trip last week to Depuy's and was pleasantly surprised by the weather and the angler. Fishing was tougher than it had been a week prior, but we still managed to find some fish. The activity around the redds has substantially reduced, but there are still lots of fish up around Betty's Riffle. For whatever reason, the middle section of the creek seemed void of all fish life! Only spotted one smallis brown and the angler got no bites! So, we headed to the lower section and got some fish to eat some small pheasant tails and scuds. I saw a surprisingly good number of BWO's on the water (it was really sunny out) but only the occasional rise.
We made a stop at the pond on our way out and got half a dozen fish in quick order to eat a small bugger as the sun disappered. All in all, a great day out for both the client and myself. I'm looking froward to things picking up again in the spring.

Cereberal Meanders

Christine is in San Francisco this week attending professional meetings. She called me today to let me know that she had just attended a talk by Al Gore on global warming. Now, I'm neither going to agree or disagree with the whole gloabla warming theory...only time will tell if this is blip on the geological timeclock or a human induced quickening. One little point though...Gore recently went on a speech tour and while in New Zealand and Australia...record cold temepratures greeted him each day. I'm not syaing that Global Warming is mumbo jumbo, but Gore really doesnt' have much credibility. Someone should really tell him that when he clicked on "connect" that one time...the internet was already there.

Balmy Days

I fished this past Saturday on the Upper Madison around Valley Garden for an hour or so. The warm weather of the past week really broke up the ice on most of the area rivers and has made for soem nice fishing weather. We didn't fish too hard, but picked up several fish on some small San Juans and Red Disco Midges. Got some fish out of riffles and some out of the slow water where you'd expect to find them.
We took a look at the Madison, below Ennis Lake Dam and it was packed with people. 10 years ago or so you never saw anyone in there, now it's kind of like winter Mecca for local anglers. Oh well...fishing is still good in there, it's just a long way to drive to fish within 100 yards of someone else.
Duck Hunting has been really good for me over the last month. Went out on Sunday and missed more than I hit. Lots of Mallards around now and it seems like more and more geese are starting to show up as well.

The Countdown

I head to the South Island of NZ in about 6 weeks. My wife gets concerned when I tell her that I can't sleep at night becuase I'm so excited...we've got a kid on the way and that just doesn't keep me up as much right now! I have the rest of the urchins life to worry, so I'll just focus on NZ instead.

There is a small group of us going, http://www.finsandfeathersonline.com/dest.html and here's the trip in a nutshell. I should be doing it again next year.

I've got about a zillion flies to tie, but I'm more concerned about shooting birds tomorrow...Tungsten this, brass bead this, unweighted, leaded, hackled, parachute...the pain in the ass lies in the fact that I really only need to tie about 10 patterns...it's just that each one has 5 variations. Oh, the worries I have!

Let it snow, let it snow....

I was up at Big Sky yesterday for the celebratory first day on the ski hill. Somehow, I managed to talk my 8 year old son, Alex, into playing hooky so that I could take advantage of my ski free opportunity at BS. Anyway, we had a great time, got a little sore, spent more money than I thought possible for a free day of skiing - I had to buy a new pair of ski pants before leaving town as my old ones must have shrunk...substantially & Alex forgot his coat btu remembered that he forgot his coat when we were wlking to the lift!

I hadn't given the snow conditions much thought until today. There really wasn't too much up there...or anywhere around here right now. Sure, the hills are white but we need some serious snow. I'm sure we'll get it as we always seem to have just enough at the right time...but it's always a little nervewrecking.

I've been thinking about water a lot latley. It's really going to be the one resource that we can't get from somewhere else or come up with an engineered substitute - at least from a landscape view. More houses...more wells...more concrete....more yards to water...same depletion and less to start with every year. It's going to catch up to us sooner than later I'm afraid. Water conservation and protection is the single most important conservation issue that the west faces. As individuals and as a society...I hope that we can stay ahead of the curve so that our rivers, lakes, and mouths can stay wet. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I think we need to start paying attention to the reality of the approaching problem.

As the ground water gets depleted from wells, surface water from rivers, streams, and rainfall is used to recharge the "aquifers." Over time, with increased uses coupled with drought or droughtlike conditions, that recharging process takes more water whihc results in less of that surface water actually staying on the surface. If you know me at all, you know that the phrase "environmentalist" is not often used to describe my nature...that's how important I think this water conservation issue is. It actually does keep me up at night! So, water your yard less, turn the faucet off while brushing your teeth, drink bottled water, and...if you have enough money...go lease some water rights in the Gallatin Valley and put that water back into the streams. The trout will love you for it and I'll take you fishing anytime!

Winter on the Spring Creeks

I had a guide trip this past Saturday and Sunday to Depuy's Spring Creek that turned into a Sunday only trip. The temps had been in the teens on Saturday, so we opted for some other activities and made the venture over the hill on Sunday. I hadn't fished Depuy's in a couple of years, but found that it hadn't changed too much since my last trip.

Lots of fish are in the creeks now, with many a Brown Trout hunkered down on the redds. We mostly fished the lower creek to avoid the winds and stay close to a warming hut. Plenty of fish were found throughout the stretch on Egg patterns and BH Pheasant Tails. Isn't it amazing that fish still eat a BH PT?

The day was relativley short as things cooled down quickly around 3:30, but all in all...a good day out. I really enjoy the spring creeks in Livingston during the off season as there are plenty of fish around, not too many other anglers, and the wading is not life threatening.

I was duck hunting on the Yellowstone about a week ago...a couple days after it was really cold...the high that day was near 0. Wading across the sidechannel, in the dark, with slush ice bouncing off the old waders was an adventure.