On the Rise

I had the last couple days off, which was kind of a blessing. I'm feeling a bit beat up after the last stretch. I woke up to snow this morning but calm winds. Calm winds...


So I checked the weather on Yahoo, which is fed by the Weather Channel and read the alert. It was a synopsis of the weather we had for April--not really a warning at all. It said that this April was one of the windiest Aprils on record. On Monday, gusts all over the central part of Montana set records hitting 58mph in Helena and 55 in Great Falls. I do like to work and fish do eat when it's windy but...I'm glad I had Monday off.

Rivers are on the rise too now so I guess that means they drop the Missouri? (They only dropped it a couple hundred cfs and I'm sure it will go up soon.) As I drove out of Wolf Creek on Monday, the Little Prickly Pear was flowing muddy and so was the Upper Missouri by Toston. Canyon Ferry was half mud and the Jefferson and Madison were off as well. Many of the rivers were quite a bit lower than average due to the cold weather delaying some of the run-off but it's coming soon and the rivers are reaching that long-term mean level. The last storms have been good for the snow-pack and with a little luck, we'll have a moderate Spring that will bring some more moisture but stay cool so the run-off is a gradual sustaining type run-off.

Regardless, unless we get some crazy storms, the Missouri shouldn't get too off-colored even below the Dearborn for more than a couple days. It is May and it is that time of the year where we all start speculating. I guessed a little low last year but the Missouri still didn't get very high. I'm saying 8,245 cfs this year. Any takers on the over? The fishing should be good all spring. I'm looking forward to getting back out there.

Keep 'em where they live...