Can you feel it !!

[JohnScott]

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

[johnstoeckel]

I live in SE Minnesota which is part of the "Driftless" region. The driftless region is karst geography laced with limestone out croppings, deep valleys, springs and plenty of trout streams. Since our trout streams have a lot of ground water, they rarely freeze over in the winter or form anchor ice. In Minnesota, we have a C&R season on selected streams that runs from Jan 1 until our regular season opens April 1.

It's below zero today, but we've had enough tolerable days (25-30 degree) that I've been out several times already since Jan 1. Fishing is usually a bit slower and deep nymphing with scud and midge larva patterns in slower mid-pool areas is usually required to catch fish. But it's still great to fly fish for trout when there's snow on the ground and it's almost magical to see midges or little black stoneflies crawling around on the snow and fish rising to midges against a backdrop of snow.

Here's a typical SE MN stream in winter.
P2040003.JPG

And a recently hatched midge on the bankside snow
P1170004.JPG

In some ways, it's my favorite time of year for fishing. But, yeah, I've noticed the days starting to get longer and in another 4-6 weeks we might see some BWOs starting to hatch which is also my favorite time of year for fishing.

[DG]

My local water has been running ice for three or four weeks now. Looks kinda like...Montana. Getting twitchy.

[Fly Goddess]

The slow moving rivers here are iced over. The Provo is open however with ice edges. The fishing is great though, so that is a bonus and makes the deicing the guides every other cast almost tolerable. Even the leaders are freezing up.

[Rick Z]

Ponds are frozen over here.

Rick

[Kaboom1]

John

I thought I felt it, but it was just gas....

The river behind the house is completley frozen over today. First that has happened in 2 years. No snow on the ground, some predicted for Thursday.

I have noticed the light changing, both morning and evening. In 60 days, we will all be ready to get out there and dust off the winter blues.

Brad

[EdD]

Does all of this indicate a hibernating left thumb?

Ed

[Byron haugh]

John,
Perhaps bodes well for better Spring fishing with runoff not as bad as some years???

[Fly Goddess]

Global Warming Convention

[Ray Kunz]

But it's only about 60 days 'til Spring.