Received this notice in the mail box as of this morning.   Why West Yellowstone was left out of the mix is still in question.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MAY 14, 2012

Contact: Cheryl Morris, 406-994-6359

FWP APPOINTS MADISON RIVER CITIZEN ADVISORY COMMITTEE

BOZEMAN—Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks announced today the seven individuals appointed to serve on the Madison River Citizen Advisory Committee (MCAC). Members of the MCAC will develop recommendations for managing recreation on the Madison River. FWP will prepare a recreation management plan based on the recommendations of the MCAC and input from the public.  FWP anticipates having a draft plan for public review near the end of this year or early 2013.

33 people applied for positions on the MCAC. The seven members, listed below, are a cross-section of the public that recreates on the Madison River and those who are affected by recreation management decisions. The committee members’ interests are diverse and include angling, tubing, boating, nature watching, outfitting, conservation, and tourism.

The first meeting of the MCAC is scheduled for 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on May 30at FWP Region 3 Headquarters in Bozeman (1400 S. 19^th Avenue). There will be time set aside near the end of the meeting for observers to provide comments to the committee.

For additional information on the Madison River Recreational Plan, please visit the dedicated FWP website at fwp.mt.gov/recreation/management/madison/default.html. Any questions may be directed to the River Recreation Manager, Cheryl Morris, at 406-994-6359.

The Madison River Recreation Management Plan has advanced in it’s planning process as of Friday, May 11, 2012.  FOAM announced that the CAC has been chosen, but it looks as if the total number of committee members has shrunk from 12 down to 7.   Throughout the scoping process, FWP touted a committee of 12, yet someone has decided that smaller is better.   There were three worthy applicants from West Yellowstone, myself included, who desired a spot on the Citizen’s Advisory Council.   Unbelievably, the town of West Yellowstone was left off the list by those in charge. I can’t wait to hear why.  What rationale can there be?

The Madison River Recreation Management Plan CAC members:

Robin Cunningham – Gallatin Gateway
John Way – Ennis
Joe Dilschneider – Ennis
Bob Gibson – not sure
Joe Fontaine – not sure
Lee McKenna – not sure
Philip Naro – not sure

The top three are friends of mine and in all honesty, are solid individuals from the outfitting and guiding community.  The other four are new names to me.  Where are they from?  I guess we’ll know shortly.    Hopefully, FWP will release all the names and their origins, of those who applied to the CAC.

All winter long I write about Yellowstone National Park and post, from time to time, a few things about fly fishing.   During the summer, I hardly ever I write about the curiosities of Yellowstone as fishing consumes me.  Hiking without a fly rod is simply strange……as most of you know, the Park waters are not yet open to fishing, therefore I had to leave the rod at home.   Most of the rivers in YNP are muddy and should be clear by the end of June.  The Firehole will be fishable when the Park opens at the end of this month.

My wife, the Park Ranger, and I took hike yesterday up Specimen Ridge to look for petrified trees which have been exposed from wind, snow and rain erosion.  Yellowstone has the largest collection of petrified trees in the United States, some say the world.  A few trees are upright, in the growing position, yet geologists argue whether or not these trees actually grew right here or got pushed to this place by glaciers or mud flows…….geologists love to argue.    40-55 million years ago, these trees were covered in ash and volcanic mudflows.  At one point in time Redwoods grew here, telling us that the climate was much warmer and closer to the ocean, than today.

This blue grouse, or dusty grouse, was in full mating display for several minutes.  We sat down, watched and listened as he courted the female about 3 feet away.  Springtime in Yellowstone is one of the best time frames for seeing wildlife without the crowds of summer.   We saw eight different bears on our drive through the Park, two different sets of a sow and two cubs, and two different single griz browsing for food.  Don’t forget that bear spray!

While we patiently wait for the General Season Opener, May 19, there is some great fishing to be had in between the lakes – Betwixt.  I don’t head down there very often and pound the same holes and now, after the warm temps over the past two days, Cabin Creek is pumping again so the right bank is quite dirty.  Fish are eating all sorts of flies – rubber legs, pheasant tails, zerbra midges, eggs patterns and prince nymphs.

***Please Note****

Lots of rainbows are spawning right now in every channel on the Madison River – be careful where you wade fish.   Those shallow channels have enough water this spring, resulting in spawning beds (redds).  When you see fish stacked up in 12 inches of water, realize that they are procreating.

Snow pack Update

Madison River – 84%

Gallatin River – 91%

Jefferson River – 61%

Missouri headwaters – 73%

The white gold up in the hills is holding in there.  60-75 degree temps are forecasted for the next 5 days, so some of this is gonna melt.  Its May, therefore run-off is inevitable and this sort of thing is normal.  We didn’t get anywhere near the snow pack that fell last winter.  It actually feels like summer here in West Yellowstone.  Hopefully, we get some more snow up in the high country in the next 6 weeks.

Missouri River Report – there has been good to great dry fly fishing on the Missouri River below Holter Dam.  BWOs, March Browns and Caddis are hatching.  The Caddis are not hatching river wide, however, the trout are eating caddis larva/pupa below Craig.   The Missouri is fishing as well as it can – meaning that things up there are really good.  Big Sky Anglers will be on the Missouri from May 27 through June 13 -  we are booked solid for this time frame.  We get up to the MO all summer long and have ears and eyes in Craig on an almost daily basis.  Greg Falls, one of the best fishing guides on the river, works for us for over half of his season.   Contact us for more information on our Missouri River guided fly fishing trips.

Many of you think I spend my free time ironing Joe’s fishing shirts and making guide lunches. Hardly. My home is the home of Big Sky Anglers, and its stuffed to capacity with rods, reels, flies, a shop’s worth of fly tying materials, boots, waders, hunting gear, and bird dogs. My worldly goods consist of a tiny, tiny closet, one coffee mug, and shelf of books. Can’t live without my books. I spend my mornings reading, mug in hand, with a variety of titles, from classics to contemporary fiction.

Recently, my good friend and West Yellowstone librarian Steve encouraged me to try a new release, The Royal Wulff Murders, by Montana author Keith McCafferty. Skeptical of reading a book about fly fishing (seems like I experience lots of it firsthand), I found myself quickly immersed in this book. Centered around the lower Madison, from Quake Lake to Ennis, McCafferty’s murder mystery is cast with fisherman. Main character Sean Stranahan is a divorced artist, avid angler, and semi-private investigator who gets involved with a dead body found just above Lyon’s Bridge. Sheriff Martha Ettinger determines this man died of foul play, partially because his eyeball is impaled on a stick downstream of the body, and a Royal Wulff is stuck in his lip. Stranahan and Ettinger are joined by a motley crew of Montana’s best locals: Rainbow Sam, a smelly fishing guide famous for exploits on and off the river; Vareda, a hot Southern redhead who literally tangles with Stranahan; and Doris, the sassy manager of the local bar. Locals will recognize lots of places, including the Grizzly Bar, the Sheep Creek trailhead, Ennis Cafe, and the Gallatin Gateway Inn. Stranahan even takes a jaunt up to the Missouri and catches a twenty-five inch brown near the Wolf Creek bridge. The plot thickens with details like whirling disease, cranky nonresident landowners, and of course, just a bit of sexual tension. Stranahan is quite a player.

I know just enough about fly fishing to get my line tangled, yet still found this book quite readable. He imparts a true sense of the conservation and profound love of the environment I see from so many in the angling community. A few lines stuck with me, like “Trout are the ghosts of moving waters, gone like the dreams one longs to remember.” I like the investment McCafferty makes in each character, detailing just enough about the personalities and physical appearances.  Vareda’s sultry southern belle-ness grew a little tiresome after awhile, but what crusty old fisherman isn’t a sucker for deep cleavage and impractical female fishing attire (both scenarios do appear in the book). I laughed in a few spots as well, such as Stranahan and Rainbow Sam’s favorite drive-thru espresso stand, staffed by ladies in bikinis and lingerie, called “Lattes & Lookers.” Can’t wait until that place shows up at Four Corners.

So, give this book a few afternoons in the hammock. I bet you will like it.

– Molly Moore

Took a boat ride on Hebgen Lake this afternoon.  The wind was light, the sun was high and our fishing kinda sucked…..but….it was so fun to be on the lake.  At one point, while running back across to another spot, where we caught a trout, several immature bald eagles were trying their luck with this floating dead trout.  This eagle missed, then set up one more time and grabbed it perfect.

Fished the river Betwixt yesterday afternoon, hoped for some dry fly fishing, but could not get anything to rise up to a blind fished offering.  The river is a bit cool right now and I would think that most of the fish aren’t looking up.   Rubber legs, sjw, zebra midges and golden stoneflies all fooled fish.

River Temperature below Hebgen – 44-43 degrees……water is being drawn from below the surface for now, and is NOT running through the raceway.  This will continue until the lake fills, so I would expect the water to stay relatively cold for awhile.

Cabin Creek is off color, but visibility is not an issue on the right bank, therefore it makes sense to use heavy tippet for quick play – I like 6 and 8lb Maxima……maybe 5 and 6 lb if Cabin Creek continues to clear up.

Madison River Flows

at West Yellowstone: 733 cfs

below Hebgen: 1100 cfs

at Kirby Ranch: 1310 cfs

at Varney: 1700 cfs

Beartrap: 1730 cfs

For more than 30 years, Fred Eaglesmith has been writing and performing his unique style of music.  He has 19 albums out there – check’em out.   Why not come on down to the Madison Valley?  The upper Madison will have just opened up and the fishing will be super good!  Then you can roll on down to Ennis for a great show……..

On May 22, at the Gravel Bar in Ennis, Montana, Fred is playing.  This show will kick ass.  Starts at 7 pm.  15 bucks at the door.

Snow pack Update

Jefferson – 65%

Madison – 85%

Gallatin – 88%

Upper Yellowstone – 86%

Madison River Stream flows  05.02.2012

@ West Yellowstone – 742 cfs

below Hebgen – 1080 cfs

@ Kirby – 1310 cfs

@ Varney – 1760 cfs

Beartrap – 1960 cfs

All this warm weather lately has me thinking about May 19th (MT General Season Opener), the month of June and what is to come for the 2012 Season.  What you are about to read are just thoughts that have occurred to me, all in regards to run-off and what might be store for us in the months to come.  A piece about the weather, snow pack and run-off is hard to nail down exactly – Mother Nature does what she wants, when she wants.  So, all this could happen, but it might not.  True outdoor enthusiasts enjoy the unpredictability of the natural world.

An attempt at seeing the future…..snow pack as well.

Lots of snow exists in the high country and the snowline is hovering around 7500 feet, with north faces holding a bit more lower in elevation.  Snow will continue to fall around Yellowstone National Park and surrounding areas throughout the next month or two.  Cabin and Beaver have blown out (for a week straight and still a bit dirty) already, pushing brownish-green water through Quake Lake and into the upper Madison.  The Gibbon puked mud as well.  To the south of West Yellowstone, there is more snow, to the north and west of Hebgen Lake, it is a bit lighter.  The West Fork of the Madison melted out some, although this drainage holds an amazing amount of snow pack, even in low snow years.

I wouldn’t bet the house on it, but, the upper Madison could be finishing up with run-off around the 22nd of June and hatches not far behind.  Below Hebgen Dam to the West Fork, the river will fish well from May 19th through the rest of the summer.  As for the Yellowstone River in MT, it could be fishable by the end of the first week of July, a full month earlier than last year.  The Firehole generally drops and PMDs hatch around the first week of June.  I bet the Gallatin will be clearing in late June, unless the Taylor’s Fork get hammered with wet snow over the next month.

After the snow melts, then what?  This is the tough part.  Will it be hot and dry during July and August?  Or, will it rain in the afternoons and keep the rivers cooled off…?….nobody knows.  On the Madison, we are dealing with Hebgen Dam issues and that hasn’t done the river any favors since 2009.  The upside is that the trout are there, they just get moody once the river warms up.  Last season’s runoff fished great and the Salmonfly hatch was the best in a dozen years.  Huge trout were caught on big flies.  Fishing was solid, but got somewhat hit and miss during August and September, depending on where you fished.  This winter’s angling was pretty darn good, showing us healthy fish and positive things to come. Currently, the Madison from Mac to the Town Ramp is dropping, clearing and fishing better each day.   Belows Ennis lake there are caddis….I hear it’s been good. Construction is progressing at Hebgen Dam, with work this summer to be done inside the new discharge structure.  Yellowstone NP waters will be lower than last season, providing for spookier trout.  However, angling will be wonderful in the Park.  The Yellowstone River in Montana should fare well after last few seasons big water….will there be salmonflies on a green river?  Hopefully so. And the Missouri River will prove to be one of the greatest western trout streams ever.  It may get a bit warm in late summer, but this could be the year of the dry fly with pods of trout similar to 1999 -2002 era.

For now, we wait and see.