As I like to do year after year, in the aftermath of each Extravaganza I take some quiet time to sit back, reflect on all that we did together and, most importantly, put fingers to keyboard to reach out to thank each of you who blessed us this year with the present of your presence. And what a year it was!!
In spite of high waters, the likes of which the greater Missoula area had not seen since, get this, 1908, as we have done for each of the last sixteen years now, we fished each and every day that we were scheduled to do so with élan, good humor and boastful fishing success. I still remember on Day One of Group One, putting in midstream on the Bitterroot River and, upon seeing this majestic river in its then roaring discharge, literally stopping my wader-shod feet, standing still and simply gazing, in awe, at the amount of water that was then traversing downstream. The magnificence of it all still rests with me as well as my total respect for our cadre of guides that took on our task and, 75 boats later, looked back at the manner in which we tackled the task in front of us.
Our Twenty Inch Club board with its twenty (we are normally in the all-Extravaganza fifteen sign in level) entries provides testament that we, indeed, “were there, we fished and we conquered” and, from hereon out, can proudly testify that “we were there” when the Great Flood of 2018 occurred, and we witnessed it without the added burden of bussing ourselves over the Continental Divide to fish the Mighty Mo (where weather conditions were even more severe than we witnessed, what with 50 mph winds there).
Oh, did I mention weather?!? Yes, we all were subjected to one of the wettest Junes in western Montana history with rain virtually every day (love those E-18 rain jackets!), [much] colder weather than usual (I still remember scraping ice off the windshield to drive into town on Group One’s Day Three!), and, for the first time ever, snow on not just one but two occasions, once during Group One and a second arctic blast during Group Two (love those E-18 fleeces and bamboo shirts!). Virtually every night we had a fire roaring in the inside fireplace (even trying to smoke out the main house during Group One—right, “Burning Man”?!?)—and, in fact, we went through over two cords of wood by the end of it all, with the outside firepit finally being used to success on Day Three of Group Three (the rain was so intense during Group Two, as you Tattoos know, that the downpour actually doused the outside fire that we had, in futile attempt, tried to start!).
And then there were the E-18 “bars”: (a) gravel bars; (b) sand bars; (c) salad bars; (d) potato bars and (e) of course, bourbon bars—the latter three of which all can look forward to being future Extravaganza regulars, with the first two already being givens.
Join with me a moment or two in reflection back on all that we saw, all that we sensed, and all that we shared together—the unmitigated hilarity of every boat report yet lives with me; the hundreds of hours of comraderies and shared friendships; the awesome beauty of the sights and scenery that we saw—osprey, eagles, fish of every denomination, beaver, deer, fox, muskrat, hawks and, yep, right on cue at the request of Group Three’s “Juli The Teach” a moose with her newborn baby calf right in our own backyard…just standard fare for western Montana’s, a place that, years ago, I dubbed as “God’s very own back yard—She loves it there!”
I stand in applause to each of you and take my E-18 cap off to “y’all” as Michelle and I extend this, our warmest thanks, for your being part of this now annual tradition.
Bravo, bravo, bravo on a job so very well done…until we fish together again!!!
Rock Creek Ron
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