It’s been a while since we’ve thrown something up on the blog. Damn, it’s almost been 6 weeks!
The late winter / early spring weather here in the neighborhood hasn’t felt very spring like, though the sun has just come out (it’s almost noon) and it looks like there’s a fair amount of new snow in the hills from the latest storm.
Runoff has dampened a bit on the area waters – driving by the Gallatin (near Four Corners) yesterday evening revealed much improved water that was quite a bit lower and stained a bit but not that dirty. It looked eminently fishable. Probably not so this morning given the heavy rains through the night and new snow melting as we speak.
Doesn’t really matter – there’s always some fishing to be done somewhere.
We’re pretty pumped about some new stuff we’re working on for the late spring and summer. We’ve been shooting and will continue to work on a complete update of our Rivers in Motion series – our goal is to have the bulk of the field work wrapped up by the 4th of July of weekend.
For a variety of reasons that include both play and work (note the order of placement) part of our team is headed to the Lone Star state for a while. Jake was down scouting recently along the coast in Rockport and Port Aransas and grabbed a pic of a gulf shrimper coming back in – he opined that the bikinis made up for the wind and haze at the beach than day.
Though not being discussed a great deal right now, it appears that tarpon have returned in decent numbers to the southernmost Texas coast – we’ll be down there filming this summer. We’re also working on a documentary project looking at how the oil disaster in the gulf is impacting and will impact fly fishing – we think we’ll going to focus primarily on Louisiana, though by all indications a great deal of the coastal gulf could be changed for a long time. To quote Henry Fonda in Spencer’s Mountain – damn, damn, triple damn, hell.
Southern Montana is a whole ‘nother universe compared to Central and Coastal Texas.
No doubt the food is a lot better down south (doesn’t some genuine Texas ‘que sound great for lunch?) and the bikini season is a lot longer in Texas than here.
Jess from Fire Girl Photography and I had a chance to run down to Yellowstone this weekend.
Without any reminder of the month and date you might have guessed it was mid-May (or even closer to summer) than the third week of April. Bright sun, melting snow and stained (but damned tempting) rivers were the dominant themes of the day.
The meadow grass is greening, birds are singing and road construction on the Madison Junction – Norris section is in full swing. All the sudden the late spring / early summer season doesn’t seem to be all that far off.
We’ve posted three galleries showcasing some of the work of a promising young photographer here in Bozeman – Jess over at Fire Girl Photography. She posts several pics a week on her blog along commentary…
She has a particular affinity and eye for equestrian action shots, though she does spend a fair amount of time on and around area rivers and enjoying the neighborhood.
Spring can sometimes seem a long time coming here in southwestern Montana.
This morning finds a fresh layer of snow on the ground with more falling now (as it has most of the morning). The weather gurus say it’s 37 degrees with a bit of a breeze from the north right now.
St. Patrick’s Day (just two days ago) found us basking in the sun with the high 64 at my house; the lion’s share of snow in town, at least in areas with any sun exposure, had melted.
A quick run up Gallatin Canyon that afternoon proved that the early spring melt was elbowing it’s way into the lower elevations – it was a toasty 55 or so in the Big Sky Meadow.
We caught a cascade of water pouring off the roof of a local resort south of Big Sky….
Jake managed to escape the clutches of his office and computer yesterday and headed West to the Ruby. He and a friend fished hard and brought five decent fish to hand, one of which was this pig.
To hear Jake tell the story his ‘bow was a reincarnation of Moby Dick in the flesh.
I managed to sneak away with the boss (my lovely wife) and daughter for a run to the northern part of Yellowstone, specifically the Lamar valley. After several inches of snow Saturday night in Bozeman the day brought warm temperatures (almost 50 in Livingston) and a bright blue spring-looking sky.
Spent a bit of time yesterday afternoon running over to the Missouri (target Craig) with Jake and my wife to do a bit of scouting.
Fewer fishers out that expected – it was breezy (yep, it’s the Missouri), in the high 40s with filtered sun. The few boats we saw typically had one fisher fishing and one bundled up looking pissed – see below….
There was more than just a bit of new green growth around; bankside bushes are budding and critters are waking up….
Looks like the Mann Gulch Memorial near the Wolf Creek bridge has a new coat of paint.
If you’ve not read Young Men and Fire (by Norman Maclean who authored “the book”) you must. He offers a great account of the men and the circumstances that led to one of the most impressive disasters in the history of fighting forest fires in the US. Exhaustively research and thoughtfully written it’s well worth your time.
We’ll be back on the Missouri soon (maybe next week) for a film shoot……
Most of us here at Dry Fly Media have an interest in dead tree media the traditional print media and while our main interest is in digital magazine publication, we try and keep tabs on other media venues as well.
We’ve posted a another gallery on the portfolio site today – just click on the tiled images above to be taken right to the gallery ….
These were taken over the past weekend on the upper Gallatin just below the northern border of the Park (Yellowstone); snow is melting fast and there was mud in the meadows along one of our favorite series of holes on this section of the river. Nearly 50 with a bit of a breeze out of the south, and yes, we took some nice fish on medium sized green Hare’s Ears from the deeper pools…..
It’s been a while since we’ve thrown something up on the blog. Damn, it’s almost been 6 weeks!
