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 [SIZE=1]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 ??
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.
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.
It’s not quite that iced / snowed over yet this winter, but it is well on its way.
But in sixty days or thereabouts, it will start looking like the Lochsa you know. Except fishing the run off over there with big salmonfly dries beats the heck out Fish-In time fishing.
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.
It’s beginning to look like this will be the first month in the ten years that I’ve been fishing ( in the Intermountain West and Northern Rockies ) that I won’t fish because of cold weather.
Not so much like hibernating, more like being benched. :mad:
Considering how good the fishing was during the past two runoffs, which were really big, I’d rather have monster runoffs than trickles. Now a lot of folks will disagree with and protest such a statement. But then they don’t much fish where I do. Lucky me.
I’m not sure about a lot of places here out west, but given what I’ve seen, there’s a lot of water locked up tight and cold in the mountains. This has been one of the colder winters in recent memory. So my gut says higher run-off in the spring. Compared to last years’s meager run-off, that will be a welcome sight.
Another aspect of this is what happens after runoff. In 2011 we had a lot of snow on the Bitterroot and a late, long, and heavy runoff and the fishing for the rest of the summer and fall was really good.
In 2012 we had less snow and a much more moderate runoff, earlier and somewhat complicated with rain events, at least on the Lochsa, and the fishing the rest of the summer and fall was not as good as it was in 2011.
A huge snowpack and runoff can signal a great water year and great fishing compared to less snow leading into a decent water year and okay fishing.
I dunno. I (cough) caught more fish on the Lochsa in '12 than I did (cough) in the same time frame in '11, by about 15%. That (cough) might have been due to less pressure (cough) from all the smoke from all the fires (cough), or maybe I just got that much better in the intervening year. Cough.
Might recover someday, too.
I would rather fish low water than high, honestly. Too much of the river out of reach when the water is up, and I just KNOW the fish on the other side are bigger.
Must have been that you got better, Dennis. Or luckier, by maybe 18% ??
Over the course of 102 days fishing the Lochsa in 2012, from late March through early December, compared to 60 days fishing it in 2011, from late May through mid November, it was very clear that there were more people fishing there in mid to late summer in 2012, and that both the quantity and size of the fishies was generally down compared to 2011. But I don’t think there is any correlation between those two facts. My reading is that the difference was the significantly higher streamflows in 2011 compared to 2012.
Interestingly, the fishing did pick up somewhat early in the fall. That may be part of your experience compared to mine. Also, I generally fish in the upper reaches of the river, above Saddle Camp. Perhaps you were fishing further downstream ?? And it was my impression that there would be more fish further down in the system, and more fishermen, and that might have been a part of the difference for you comparing 2011 to 2012 ??
Having fished that system as much as I have the past four years, I’ll go with humugous snowpacks and huge amounts of water in the system rather than lower flows, even if some of the fish are on the other side of the river.
Guys,
I normally fish a tailwater - the Henry’s Fork - Upper stretches. High snow pack means they release a lot of water in June to make room for the high runoff. That sort of messes with the fishing.
Last summer (mid June through mid July for me) was very good given the lighter runoff.
Additionally, the streams in the Park are high and turbid with a big runoff in the Spring/early summer.
My tailwater has been running ice for weeks…until today! Then again, I was hunting ducks and not fishing. I did see one fish caught and released, by a common merganser. About an 8" sucker. Almost enough to get me to tie some flies and go fishing tomorrow.
And yes, the Lochsa is a freestone. If anyone wants to see what it looks like in full runoff, go to youtube and enter “Lochsa rafting”. I suspect John is actually angling for one of the Grizz coeds on a raft that time of year.
Now a lot of folks will disagree with and protest such a statement. But then they don’t much fish where I do. Lucky me.
