Extraordinary December ...
... at least on 12-1-21.
The Lochsa was running a bit high yesterday, but clean and clear. The temps were in the upper 30's, skies partly cloudy, and very little wind. All of that is extraordinary for this river in early December, and would be even for mid-November in most years. There have been years when the river was almost completely frozen over, with only short stretches of ice free moving water, and covered with up to several feet of snow as early as mid-November.
At best, in those years when there has been open water in November and December, the snow severely limits access to it - first because there very few places where the snow plow guys bother to clear anything but the travel lanes of U. S. 12, and even where there are places to park there is a snow berm several feet high and if you get through that you are either walking through woods deep in snow or scrambling down steep, rocky, snow covered banks. Several times in past years I have walked some distance down the highway from a parking area and then snow shoed through deep snow in the woods to the river.
That being said, there have been a couple Decembers when an FEB dry caught a fish or two. So yesterday, with an FEB Salmonfly dry bringing up somewhere between 20 and 25 trouts in two different places to play tag, truly was extraordinary.
Perhaps even more extraordinary in one place that I accessed and had four or five fishies take a bite at the fly, even unique because over the years I have not even been able to access the river via the steep, jumbled rock scramble down to the water because of the usual snow cover in the upper stretches of the river this time of year. Not a problem yesterday.
One to remember, for sure.
John