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Spent a few days on the Lochsa last week. River is still a bit high for this time of year. Talking with the warden he mentioned that they had alot of snow over the winter, and he still hadent had his windshild splattered with bugs. To me, that means the hatches are running a bit late, or alot of nymphs got washed out!.
The fish are there, I even caught a few! *G*
Z
Z -
Almost all the rivers in that part of Idaho have been running well above long term averages since run off started. The snowpack was something like 130 - 140% of normal with great water content. Run off got started late but when the rivers got going, they just kept going, and going, and ....
The Selway, Lochsa and Clearwater are still quite a bit higher than the long term averages. The Selway is about 12% higher than "usual," the Lochsa is about 15% higher, and the Clearwater is in that same range. For details, you can follow this link :
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/id/nwis/current/?type=flow
Click on the numeric code for any river listed and you will get a seven day graph for the gauge height and the actual CFS with an indicator for the long term average for that date. There are options for other information on all these rivers, but it is kind of a pain to access it, at least for me.
The good news is that both the Lochsa and Selway have been dropping steadily for weeks now and are getting closer to the long term averages. Looks like they will be in great shape, flow wise, for the Idaho Fish In next month.
The warden's comment about insect life is interesting. May be a result of the higher and colder water where the temps just haven't gotten high enough to cause the little critters to hatch ?? I wouldn't think that the big run off would affect the insect life otherwise, but really don't know for sure. Maybe there will be a great rebound effect later in the summer and into fall with unusually large hatches ??
John