As of last Friday, my home water in Northern Idaho was mostly ice cover under snow, structural ice, shelf ice, and anchor ice with ribbons of open water of various widths and lengths here and there laced with slush ice.

As of last Saturday, my winter wading water was virtually locked solid with very little open water except in a few of the longer, faster riffles, and they were grounded in anchor ice and bounded by plenty of shelf ice.

We're having a much colder winter so far this year than last, and we are way down on precipitation in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana and the canyon of the Lochsa in Idaho. As of today, the Montana Bitterroot basin snowpack is at 80% of average. From the look of it the other day, the Idaho side of the Bitterroot is probably not much more than 50-60% of the snowpack I observed the last two Januarys.

Still a lot of time to pile up some snow in the mountains, but it's going to have to start coming soon and keep coming steadily if we are to have a good water year, let alone a great water year.

BUT the quality of the light has changed this past week, signalling that it won't be long before there will be open water and hungry fishies waiting for some treats.

How about you ??

Can you feel it ??

How are things looking for your neck of the woods ??

John