2018's Official Flow Chart is Launched!!

Here it is, gang, our initial 2018 edition of our Rock Creek Flow Chart which we created in 2007 to provide a cumulative year-to-year comparison of the runoff based on our Headquarters' home waters together with a photo taken just this morning of our Log-O-Meter in and along Rock Creek.

As we do each year, the current water flow is measured in our red line and you can see that, unlike any of the previous ten years, our initial flowage number is almost three time what it has historically averaged during that time! Also, since we began tracking our very own Log-O-Meter just ten days ago, the water traversing downstream in and along Rock Creek has increased almost four-fold from 758 cubic feet per second on April 20th to today's flow of 2,990 cfs. In a word, things are now rock'n'rollin' as you can see that the flow is now fully mid-level of our horizontal log. This structure is located at the three mile marker along Rock Creek Road with Headquarters upstream another seven miles at the 10 mile marker.

What does all this mean, you ask??

Well, the current snow water equivalent of the snowpack yet in the upper climes is still tracking at 150% of twenty year norms so, visually, the amount of water that needs to find itself downstream is about equal to where we were at this point in time in the high water year of 2011 (the cream colored line on the attached graph). That is the amount of water that needs to move downhill by June 10th for us to be able to safely and successfully fish the local Missoula rivers. So, we have a good start towards that end, but, get this--the current ambient temperature at Headquarters is 45 degrees and it is scheduled to snow in the upper climes later tonight and all day tomorrow, just adding more to what we want less of!

Ah, Mother Nature, what a fickle 2018 runoff hand you are currently dealing to us!!

'Twill be a most interesting year to follow...

RCR---<'///:><

Montana 2018

More 2018 Montana Mo Twenty Inch Monsters courtesy of Group Three's prequelers Brian "Moraine" Shepard and son "Nicholas The Czar"--way to go guys!!!

RCR---<'///:><

Log-O-Meter Update

This is a shot of yesterday's Log-O-Meter showing that the flow of our home waters Rock Creek is, indeed, on the rise, yesterday doubling its flow of a week ago to 1,580 cubic feet per second ("cfs") [and on the rise, btw, as this morning Rock Creek is already flowing at 1,790 cfs and it is forecast to be a high of 81 degrees in Missoula today which will generate even more flowage!].

Showing that age is creeping up on me, apparently, I errantly reported in the first Log-O-Meter report last week that the Rock Creek flow would be at 1,000 cfs when the water touched the bottom of the horizontal Logo-O-Meter. Well, that's not correct as you can see from the attached photo--in fact, when the flow increases to 2,000 cfs you will see the water lap against that crossbar!!

Flo, correctomio!!

RCR---<'///:><

Spring Fishing in Montana!!

Take a gander at the attached three photos just received from returning Group Three veterans Brian "Moraine" and "Nicholas The Czar" Shepard who, as they do each year, ventured to Missoula for their annual Spring Sorrie to fish with our Double Up Outfitter, John "The Great But Propaneless [and, of recent, Grillless] Gould. As I mentioned to you earlier in the week, the runoff is now in full bloom in and around Missoula such that all local rivers are "blown out" (i.e., running too fast to safely drift and now the unfishable color of mocha coffee) so, as we always do in situations like this, the trio trekked over the Continental Divide to fish the Mighty Missouri River just below Holter Dam near Craig, MT (about an hour's drive north of state capitol Helena).

As is almost always is the case (what with the Might Mo averaging 5,000 trout per mile in the 18"+ range), their drive was well worth the effort as depicted, first, in Moraine's 19" gorgeous Mo rainbow and then trumped by son Czar's stunning 22" brown trout followed by his 21" "bigger bow"!

The Mo's "tailwaters" below Holter Dam are nearly always fishable, clear and serene, so long as the "W" Factor does not insert itself (that being the to-be-whispered-only word {never to be mention aloud} of [ssshhh] "wind"]!!

Bravo, bravo, bravo!!

RCR---<'///:><

The 2018 Runoff is Officially Off and Running, Gang!

Warmer weekend temperatures in western Montana have now kickstarted the 2018 runoff, witness our Headquarters’ own Rock Creek which, this time last week, was flowing at 750 cubic feet per second (“cfs”) and which is currently flowing at (a still relatively modest) 1,350 cfs, but, nonetheless, a 75% increase in just one week’s time.  Snow water equivalent in the upper climes is yet 150%+ of twenty year norms, so there is still a ton ( read, literally “tons”!) of snowpack that needs to thaw, melt, and find its way down hill and downstream.

 

But, at least, the process has blessedly begun!!

 

Stay tuned… news at 11:00.

 

RCR---<’///:><

 

 

 

E-18 Logo-O-Meter

Thanks to this morning's photo input from our Extravaganza Caretaker/Kitchen Guru Extraordinaire "Peanut" Tofanelli (so named because she has yet to crack much more than 5 feet in height!), by looking at our historical, self-named "Log-O-Meter" as shown in the attached pic, each year we have the opportunity to give you a symbolic visual look into just what impact the runoff has on the creeks and rivers of western Montana.

Today's shot above is pre-2018 runoff showing our Headquarters' home river Rock Creek now flowing at a relatively modest 750 cubic feet per second ("cfs") Imagine this flow as the equivalent of a garden hose flowing in your front yard. When the runoff gets fully underway, that hose will blossom into and become a comparative fire hose! By way of example, when the Rock Creek runoff increases to 1,000 cfs (which it should do within the next several weeks), Rock Creek's water level will rise to the bottom of our Log-O-Meter; when it rises to 2,000 cfs the water level will flow over the top of our horizontal log and, thereafter, all that you see in this photo will be literally underwater.

Such is the nature of each year's runoff...

May the Log-O-Meter be with y'all!!

RCR---<'///:><

Extravaganza Blessings

It seems that every one of our now sixteen years of Extravaganzas receives blessings in its own special way(s) and E-18 is no exception in that regard. 

 

This year, in addition to being blessed by the presence of Montana’s Governor, Steve Bullock) during Group One (he actually called me a few months ago and asked to be included in this year’s event),  last week, while in Missoula, I had lunch with David Brooks, the new Executive Director of Montana’s Trout Unlimited, who asked if he could present to each of our groups (and now will do so each of our Sunday nights)—this will be an extravagant first for us. 

 

Also, earlier that same Tuesday, I had a Montana Matters meeting with representatives of our dear, extravagant friends at the National Wildlife Federation and the Montana Natural History Center (each of which organizations has been a recipient of Extravaganza donations over the last several years) and, get this, the two organizations (on their own and without any coaching from me) would like to throw an special E-18 après fishing party at the Montana Natural History Center  Monday night for each of our three groups so that you can all see, first hand, just what MNHC does (thanks to [y]our past, present and future Extravaganza funding) for the youth of now all of Montana…what fun!!  On those Mondays, in the morning we will meet our guides at MNHC’s Missoula headquarters and return there post fishing for light h.d’s and beverages du jour before our returning to Headquarters for dinner.

 

Keep you eyes peeled for an incoming invitational postcard from NWF and MNHC in the form attached and don’t worry how you are going to get to/fro this gala event, as that is my extravagant privilege to so do!!

 

Can you feel the closeness of it all, gang?? 

 

Yep, with biblical connotations, E-18 launches in a little more than forty days and forty nights from now…just visualize the equivalent of an intervening fishing-fasting Lent!!

 

Best to all in the advanced preparation stages of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

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E-18: Water, Water Everywhere!!

Greetings, gang, as I just have unpacked my hand-carried bags from my return trip from Montana and want to give you an E-18 update on what I both observed and learned from my fishing friends during my week-long stay there in God’s own backyard, to wit:  By all indications, 2018 is going to be a “high water year” when it comes to this year’s runoff (if and when that runoff ever gets underway)!

 

During each of the three years ending in 2016, Montana witnessed average precipitation levels with the “snow water equivalent” of the amassed snow being spot on twenty year averages.  Each of those three years, however, experienced “early runoffs” where, during either the month April or May, higher than average temperatures visited western Montana such that the otherwise “average” snowpack was melted off earlier than normal, leaving us in each of those years with below average but very fishable water conditions when it came time for our Extravaganzas. 

 

Last year, western Montana had an above average snowpack but cool temperatures preserved that amassed snow in the upper climes until our Group One arrived on the scene and we then saw warmer temperatures and too much snow runoff/water flowage for us to safely fish our normal haunts, the three rivers confluencing in and around Missoula, namely the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, the Bitterroot River and the Big Blackfoot “A River Runs Through It” River.  As we have done several times over the 15 year history of the Extravaganza, we redirected and bussed our efforts to fish the Missouri River, at Craig, Montana—a 125 mile jaunt each way over the Continental Divide to fish below the regulated, safe tailwaters below the Missouri’s Holter Dam.

 

Regardless of the water flow over each of the past 15 years (see the attached chart that of the flowage that we have done over the past eleven years using the water flow of our own Rock Creek as a baseline), we have and will fish every single day of every Extravaganza, the only question being will we be fishing (a) Missoula’s local rivers or (b) the Mighty Mo (where the fish count is 5,000 fish per mile [that is one fish per every foot, gang!] and the average trout is 18+ inches in length)?

 

As to this year, our answer to this question is now very much in doubt…right now, the ambient temperatures in western Montana have been running about 5 degrees below historical norms (witness my pics from last Thursday when we got 6” of fresh snow at Headquarters!) and the regional forecast temperatures for the next several weeks are to be relatively low, in the high 50’s to low 60’s.  Compounding these relatively milder temperatures, right now (as in today) the snow water equivalent of the snow amassed in the Upper Clark Fork drainage (which will eventually flow right through Missoula) is, get this, 173% of twenty year averages none of which has begun to make its way down the mountains.  To the contrary, with continuing snow that number may well increase this number in the weeks ahead if we have a delayed runoff, which it now looks like 2018 will bring.  Here are some specific numbers:  at Warm Springs (about 100 miles upstream of Missoula) the current snow water equivalent (SWE) is 38.8 inches (compared to a twenty year norm of 21.2”) and at the upstream Skalkaho Summit the current SWE is 33.7 inches as compared to the twenty year norm of 21.7 “, 183% and 155% above twenty year norms comparatively.

 

Check out our historical flow chart attached, gang.  Other high water years of 2008 and 2011 saw us trekking over the Divide to fish the Missouri and, starting in two weeks when we begin logging in this year’s actual Rock Creek flow you will see, by way of comparison, what 2018’s runoff has to offer as it unfolds.  What we would ideally like to see in a runoff is a redux of 2009’s perfect bell curve (the black line on our chart) but we shall now see what we shall see is ahead of us.

 

What does all of this mean for us, you ask?? 

 

Well, our Double Up Outfitter John “The Great But Propaneless” [and, as Group One rookie Shane “Griz” MacIntyre would argue based on his fishing experience with me last Wednesday, now “Grilless” as well!] Gould has put me on notice to think about reserving “bus transportation to the Mo” for at least Group One, and perhaps Group Two as well (something that we procured on a standby basis just today with our good friends at Tucker Transportation, btw) as we now need to carefully monitor just what runoff Mother Nature has in store for us this year (and you can see her wide, wide year to variances in our charting of Rock Creek over the past decade), so, at this point in time, the ending chapters of our runoff book have yet to be written—kinda exciting, isn’t it?!?.  Looking to that end, I will begin giving you trice-weekly charted flow reports of this year’s runoff commencing in two weeks on April 29^th.

 

Can you hear the rumbling of all of that downhill runoff in the distance??

 

Best to all in the pre-runoff stages of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

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E-18 Springtime in the Rockies!!

RCR----<’///:><

 

 

E-18: First Fish Pics of the Year!!

Well, fellow Extravaganzers, take a gander at the attached photos which depict part of the bounty that your Double Up Outfitter John “The Great but Propaneless” Gould delivered yesterday on the Bitterroot River, shown above in all of its early Spring bleakness.  Not only did we encounter a moose on the water at the end of our eight hour chilly foray on the waters but my fishing partner, our Montana Matters Troubadour Shane “Mr. Crisco” Clouse, and I landed 25+ spirited trout in between rain and sun showers.

What is a “double up”, you rookies ask?  Well, that is a somewhat rare occurrence when both fisherfolk on the same boat hook into fish at the same time, as two of the above shots reflect—the fist with an 16” rainbow and a 19” brown trout and the second with a pair of 18”bows.  The cool water brings out the brightness of colors in our pectoral friends—see the dramatic colors in the cutthroat shown above, so named for the red band below its lower gills…is that a beauty of a fish, or what?!?

 

The fishing this time of the year is sparked by a stonefly known as a “skwalla”—the first bug of the calendar year of any size…it is about an inch and a half in length and, wow, when the skwallas are on the water like they were yesterday the large fish, as shown above, really make a splashy show of soaring to the surface breaking water as they crash down on their prey.  For those of you into omens, our first day on the E-18 water yesterday was a great one, so much that I am going out solo with Propaneless again this Wednesday to see what other photos I can beam your way.

 

These photos should get you excited for what is ahead for us all in the not two distant future as the Magnificent Ones arrive here on the scene of it all exactly two month from today!

 

Best to all from the evolving scene of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

    ---<’///:><

 

 

 

Greetings, all, from chilly Montana where, as the above photos depict, it is indeed “Tween Time”—neither winter, spring or summer, but, rather, a blustery mix of it all anywhere from freezing temperatures, falling snow, sleeting rain and intermittent abundant sunshine.  This, indeed, is my favorite time of the year for, with the above-shown early budding out of winter-dormant trees and bushes, the renewal of life begins all over again and, each year, it provides a wonderfully clean palate from which to design and then implement a course of conduct for the ensuing months.  It is a time for reflection, a time for re-evaluation, a time to take inventory on what is right and needs correction in each of our worlds and, as I will later today report in further detail in my first fishing report of the year, also a time to get a first glance at the fishing prospects for the coming year…all, for sure, an opportunity for renewed reflection on all that we do and why as well as how we do it.

 

Ah, the Montana of it all!!

 

Best to all from the early scene of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

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Spring for E-18 Has Yet to Spring!

 

Greetings, fellow Extravaganzers, on the eve of my first fishing foray into the wilds of Western Montana—I leave early this Friday morning for my annual “Montana Sprint Swaree” and am scheduled to fish this coming Sunday with our Double Up Outfitter John “The Great But Propaneless” Gould and our Montana Matters Troubadour Shane “Crisco” Clouse.  This annual and cherished trip is planned well in advance, well before the reality of what the year’s “Spring” really means. 

 

Well, this year, as suggested above, the blessed warming event that all Montanans desperately look forward to (Montana has been appropriately referred to as “nine months of winter and three months of guests”) has yet to make its appearance, although a look at the calendar would dictate otherwise.  What is in the forecast for our Sunday venture?, you ask…well the most current “guesstimate” is for Sunday to boast snow mixed with rain with a blistering high of as much as 47 degrees before factoring in the chill effect of predicted 15 mph windage!  When asked by me earlier this week, the ever optimistic (and perhaps sorely housebound) Propaneless replied, “don’t worry they are really hitting dry flies…trout love 45 degree temps, you know!” To which I responded with a burry “riiiight” but nonetheless confirmed the day on the water with him.  Not only is John the best guide I have ever fished with but he is one heck of a salesman!  Picture to follow the blessed event; “don’t worry!”

 

Winter is still in full force and effect in Montana, with the most recent SNOTEL readings continuing to track both year to date precipitation and snow water equivalents at 125% of twenty year norms, boding well for our quickly approaching June fishing prospects.  In taking a look at long term forecasts (a fool’s errand by anyone’s Montana barometer, btw), high temperatures in the low to mid 50’s are the prediction for the balance of April, meaning that, come May (traditionally the wettest month of the Montana year) we can expect temps to sneak up into the 60’s and then 70’s and begin to trigger this year’s runoff/melt of the snow accumulated in upper climes.  This is an important event that we track on an almost daily basis come May 1^st, and, as we have done for each of the prior eleven (count ‘em!) years, will begin preparation and distribution of the flowage of this year’s runoff, using our Headquarters’ home base Rock Creek as the baseline for prior year comparisons. 

 

So far, unlike the past three years, it looks like we have avoided an early season runoff, which is great news, as we want our fishing waters to be abundant in volume and mild in temperature to assure the best possible Extravaganza fishing conditions.  So far, so good!!

 

I will next report to you from the soon-to-be scene of it all complete with current pictures and, according to Propaneless, perhaps even a pic or two of some pectoral friends that we are to dance with come Sunday.

 

Best to all in the cozy indoor warmth of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

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Your Very Own E-18 Camp List!

As we rapidly now approach the two month mark of the June 9^th arrival of Dem Ones, the timing is now right for me to attach for your review and attention our Extravaganza Camp List that we developed years ago at the request of one of our then rookie guests.  As is the case with everything that we do in Montana, “less is more” in our book and, as you seasoned veterans know, not only is “casual” the word of the day for us in Extravaganzaland but “layered clothing” is its matching counterpart. 

 

Think going to a baseball game here by the Bay on a foggy day where, mid-day, the mist dissolves into bright sunshine only followed a couple of hours later by the return of that fog—cold, warm, warmer, colder, cold all accompanied in Montana by the almost guarantee of an afternoon thunder shower where, suddenly as a cell appears on the horizon, the temperature drops 30 degrees, rain and/or hail erupts from the incoming clouds only to be followed after the passing of the cell by the return of sunshine, often accompanied by Montana’s famous wind.  And if you think that “it can’t happen to me”, just reach out to veteran Group Two couple Kevin “CPA” Sweeney and his beautiful bride Christine “Double Rainbow” and ask them about their day on the water four years ago when just what I described happened to them and, out of the blue, hail pelted them for the better part of half an hour!  Thanks to their heeding this warning, their experience was an exciting but warm one, with the alternative being hypothermia and, no folks, that is not a Greek City-State!!

 

So take a careful gander at the attached Camp List and, consistent with our mantra above, begin setting aside those items that you might want to/don’t need to bring with you come Extravaganza Day.  As you do so, know with certainty that, as with each of the preceding fifteen Extravaganzas, I fully reserve the right to treat you extravagantly and, with certainty, you will be taking home with you far more fishing-related gear and E-18 monogramed items than you even knew to exist!!

 

Best to all on the cusp of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

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Springtime in Montana!!

RCR---<'///:><