Cool weather turns to warm weather

Lets take a break from talking about blogging and lets do some blogging. More on blogging later.

The weather for the past 2 or 3 weeks has been more cool than warm and more wet than dry. And I'm lovin' it! What a pleasure to have cool weather in June. Although Arizona hasn't been bad, with record cool temps for 14 days, the longest stretch of days below 100 degrees for the month of June since 1913. Although we've had wet weather in Montana, there has been an unexpected increase in the number of fishermen in 'our' stretch of the river. The rain has meant the streams that feed into the bigger river are usually muddy, causing muddy conditions downstream of where we fish. That means the fishermen are looking for the clear water and the better fishing conditions. That's meant increased pressure on the fish and the space they live in.

The reservoirs and lakes in the Upper Missouri Basin are at high levels, quite different than the past few years. Some reservoirs are even at 100% capacity, like the one near us. That may change soon when the weather turns warm this coming week. We're in the 70's, going up to 80 degrees in a few days. Most of the snow in the surrounding mountains has melted, filling the reservoirs. But the farmers are getting ready to cut their first harvest of hay and then they will call for an increase in the water flow so they can irrigate their fields. The river has been in the low 200 cfs area for the past week or so. Very easy for me to wade, but the fish are having to find any little deep run to hang in.

Rick and I have found that we don't have to fish every day, although I'll ask him over and over again if he wants to go. I've relaxed a little and don't ask, I'll let him tell me when he wants to fight for a spot on the river. This afternnon, between the hail and the rain storms, we walked down to the river to check it out. The river flow is down, making for a smaller river. When we got to the river we could see at least 7 fishermen immediately upstream and at least 10 more immediately downstream, with about 3 vying for space where we were standing. Crowded to say the least. And many of them were fishing their own wake, not even casting to fish. They were just letting their sinkers and flies sink at their feet where the fish were stacking up behind them. On the San Juan River this is called the San Juan Shuffle and as many know, it is illegal on some rivers. We don't think its very sportman-like and it's funny to see the frustrated fishermen try for the fish that are eating at their feet, opportunistically eating the bugs being kicked up.

In the next post I plan to share some new photos and some video with our new camera.