Cold Spell?

I was kind of determined to fish yesterday no matter what, but I did expect the weather to be tolerable at the least and balmy at the best. Well, it really was neither. As I made my way to the shop to meet up with my buddies, the thermometer in my suburban said 12. NOAA was calling for a high in the low 30's...they were wrong.

The bleakness of the situation came shining through when we hit the lower Madison and Swanson says something to the effect of "is that slush?" So we decided to drive around and come in from the dam, hoping that the sun would work it's magic given some time. Didn't happen - it snowed all day. It was around 15 by the time we got to the powerhouse, so things were looking up. The stretch from the dam to the powerhouse was very low which makes for easy gettin' around but pretty spooky fish as there is hardly any current in the deeper holes right now. The water coming out of the powerhouse was very green. Oh, and it was really cold. Got a few and got out of there...better photos than fish.

Next headed back to the lower river, thinking things might have warmed up enough to get rid of some of that slush. Slush doesn't melt when it's 15 out - I now know. The fishing was good though as we hit a few buckets and got some fish in about 30 minutes or so of fishing. Pink stuff.

And, continuing with this getting older theme...there were some guys putting a boat in at Warm Springs which got me thinking about how stupid kids are today! Come on...don't you see the chunks of ice floating by the boat ramp? What do you think the anchor rope does when it gets wet and the temp is 10-15? Do you think the water on the inside of the boat is going to stay warm? Do you really think fish are gonna chase streamers when the water temp is 32? Kids...