I went out to one of the upper tributaries of the Columbia River this week and had a pretty good day and actually caught a few fish.

There were no ice jams in the upstream reach and there were plenty of places where the bank and the streambed were accessible. This stretch of river was in great shape and a few fish were actually on the feed in the afternoon sun. There was hardly any wind so it was a fairly pleasant day, but the cold water temps and the higher-than-usual flows made the wading a challenge.

Because of the ice, there are some places where you just can't get to open water.

There are long stretches like the one pictured here where the river flattens out and slows down, and this was where the worst ice jams formed. When the water backed up behind the jam, the surrounding pastures flooded and then froze. Obviously, there is no fishing here.

Further downstream in the deep part of the canyon, the main channel of the river was open but giant ice shelves along much of the bank made it inaccessable. There are some small rivulets and creeks and even some warm springs joining the main river, though, so there are some surprisingly congenial niche habitats here and there where fishing is sometimes possible even in the dead of winter. On this trip I found a spot where a blue heron appears to be wintering over.

The weather was a little warmer Thursday so Jerry and I ventured out in the raft and caught a few fish, rainbow and brown trout. It wasn't a bad day although the wind was bad at times and of course the water was barely above freezing, so you had to try to stay as dry as possible. Easier said than done.

Even though the springtime rainbow spawn is still at least a month or more in the future, the big buck rainbow in this shot was already fully charged-up and ready to go for it. Consequently, getting him out of the net and back into the water was, well, messy work... But as Jerry astutely pointed out, there's no sense crying over spilled milt.

Just about as cold and windy as it can be without getting downright uncomfortable, but at least it didn't rain on us.

Fishing was good, we each caught six or eight nice ones. Also saw an otter, some mink, many muskrat and too many waterfowl to count. Even some of the migratory songbirds are back although they don't seem too happy about the weather. Saw quite a few antelope on the drive up, the herds around here seem to have done pretty well this winter.

For brief interludes, the weather moderated and resembled spring somewhat but it still feels like winter most of the time, except that the snow and ice is mostly gone from the riverbank. We are still waiting for spring's first sleet storm, I was glad we didn't get it today.

If the dam at Canyon Ferry failed all at once when the reservoir was at full pool, it's not just this river here that would experience the effects. According to my calculations, this catastrophe could flood the whole Lake Helena basin from the interstate on the west to Lincoln Road on the north. In fact, the entire northwest Helena valley could be engulfed by a raging wall of water up to six and a half inches deep ... so Good bye, Ten Mile Estates and good bye Costco too. Possibly, Bob's Valley Market and Rossiter School as well.

Sadly, any washout could lead to a chain reaction where all these styrophome cups and other detritus might wash down all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, and then, who knows? Maybe the gulf stream to Norway and then over the top and back to Alaska...

So I pick up some of the trash in a mostly futile attempt to kill it before it can propagate, and in the process I find this rare fossil. I am tempted to bring it home and add it to my exclusive collection but instead, I secretly hide it in the glove compartment of Jerry's Toyota.

John and I floated the same stretch that Jerry and I ripped up yesterday.

It's never the same experience, though. Today there was no wind but it rained off and on for most of the second half of the float. According to the weather service forecast, there was 100% chance of rain or snow today with steadily deteriorating conditions expected. You could tell from the start that interesting weather was moving in.

We thought that with an early launch, we might haul out before the weather really turned bad, and that's pretty much how it worked out.

We also note here our first confirmed beaver sighting on this water in at least three years. I swear, this beaver specimen, (among the largest of all members of the North American rodent family), swam straight toward us until suddenly with a great splash of his tail he dove under the boat. I can only conclude that he was actually trying to get a better look at that raincoat.

Lowland runoff is apparently underway. The creeks and other tributaries are carrying mud into the main river and visibility in the water is decreasing, in some reaches directly below the creeks to nothing at all.

I am increasingly concerned about John's Legendary Luck as the years go by. He seems to have become a snowstorm magnet whenever we camp out with him in April. Bad April weather has followed him around for at least four years, so you might think the rest of us would have learned our lesson by now and would wait until May before trying to float and camp with him, but in 2008 (view), 2009 (view), 2010 (view) and again this year, we have ventured out on the rivers when we should probably have stayed home.

We got the complete weather package this year: Howling wind. Driving rain. Sleet. Eight inches of snow, heavy and wet. And finally, back once again to the howling wind. Still, out of six days afield, we got the raft in the water three times and floated reaches that were new to us.

Rough going, all week, and after all that, we only caught a half dozen or so decent fish.

No complaints, though, we had a wonderful time.

Of course we advise the general public to stay away from the rivers at this time of year because of the difficulty, danger and discomfort involved in the experience. Stay tuned, we plan to update this advice as conditions improve.

To celebrate the solstice and the official beginning of the summer season, I went camping up on Lake xxx, a reservoir of the xxx river.

As you can see, many of the recreational facilities and all of the toilets are under quite a bit of water. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, this reservoir is now at full pool (or, uh, maybe even just a little bit *over* full, ...y'think?) for the first time in years. Decades, maybe.

When I got up in the morning, the toilet I would have preferred to use (upper picture on the left) was occupied, so I had to swim out to use the one in the picnic area (lower picture).

It was the coldest, wettest dump I have ever taken in my 60 years of life. It's a good thing that, like every well-prepared outdoorsman, I always carry a snorkel and swim fins in my emergency kit. There is simply no substitute for proper preparation when conditions are as bad as they are right now. The recreational public is advised to stay home until all such flooding subsides.

This was new water for both Jerry and me. And conditions and circumstances weren't that great, given that the fishing wasn't that good, and we had to wait for some outfitters from Missoula to get themselves and their clients out of the way so we could launch... and it is also a long, steep haul down to the riverbank. But.

It sure was a gorgeous float through some of the prettiest country I have seen in a long time, a rare and intimate look at some remote, inaccessible country.

Conditions are still quite dangerous. The water is too fast, high and cold for comfort -- somebody actually got killed this week trying to float the Big Hole -- so be prepared or stay home.

In a perfect year, we might get to float this beautiful reach of water once. In a really really perfect year, the water and weather conditions would be as good as they were for us today.

The fishing was also pretty good. Of course there were lots of other floaters since this is the only good option among all the rivers and streams in this part of the country right now because of all the flooding and runoff, but somehow we manage to stay away from the worst of the crowding. In truth, I think the crowd probably tries to stay away from us as well. Good manners! Considerate people on all sides.

I think we caught thirty to forty fish between us.

Conditions are still too dangerous for casual recreation. For the time being, your best bet is probably to just stay home and watch a game on TV.

The flood has subsided and for the most part, the river is back within its normal banks, but the flow in this little stream is still quite high for this time of year.

Many of the bottomlands we floated through today were completely underwater last month on account of sustained rainfall throughout May and June and from better-than-average snowpack that didn't even start to melt seriously until after Memorial Day. The frustrating thing for fishermen is that many rivers and streams in this part of the state including this one have been in runoff conditions for two months or more.

The fishing was just OK. We caught a half dozen (me) or a dozen (Jerry) brown trout, most of them pretty small. The water was still murky and the day started out stormy with a cold front and a chilly north wind that blew all day, and I think these factors may have put the fishing off a bit as well, but everything considered, it was a pretty good summer day.

LGT graciously rowed "Old Fishface" down through mosquitoland today. The weather was HOT HOT HOT but the fishing wasn't bad and the water was in good shape and there was plenty of it, which is especially gratifying because the real problem with this river in recent years has been that there is hardly any water left in it by midsummer. A place that seems so healthy when the river runs like this becomes a stinking quagmire when they suck all the water out of it to flood the hay fields.

This stretch of water was just barely on the low side of perfect. We could have used a little more water but all considered it was practically as good as it ever gets. The water was cold and clear and there was enough of it to make the fishing good.

We caught lots of fish. Most of them were small, but all the bottomland around here really got washed out this year and so this is probably good news for years to come.

Yeah, we caught a lot of fish. And the cutthroats seem to be coming back, we caught twice as many on this trip as we did all last year.

This seldom-floated stretch of water was also just about perfect. It was deserted. Nothing but "empty" bottomland down here.

I haven't taken a boat through here for more than twenty years, Jerry and John had never floated it.

After which, he took off running, of course. Smart badger! And lucky us.

I never had eye contact with a badger before.

Jerry and I had a really good day on one of the primo rivers in the state. It started slow but by the end of the day, we had caught quite a few really good fish, including species that seemingly have come roaring back from the edge of extinction. Such as the bull trout in the picture on the left.

The water is still cold, but there isn't too much of it. Twelve or thirteen hundred cfs might be preferable on this run of the river, but we obviously can't complain about the eight or nine hundred we have right now.

The best part to me was that the river was not very crowded. We didn't have it all to ourselves or anything, but we didn't run into people anywhere very much.

I am not sure but I think this was new water for both Jerry and me today. We have seen it before and run the stretch below here many times, but I don't think either of us have ever floated this particular reach until now.

This lovely piece of river is approximately 11 miles of pure and uninterrupted riffle water, and today it was just barely on the low side of perfect for floating and maybe just a little high for perfect wade-fishing.

Once again we caught a lot of fish. Cutt-bows, rainbows, and mostly browns. And there were no whitefish and not too many other boats either.

We had this reach of river practically to ourselves all day for a perfectly private family float. The water was cool and in good shape but isn't perfectly clear.

Here too the spring floods have cut lots of new channels and there is a remarkable amount of debris that has washed or fallen into the river. In some areas, channels are completely blocked, so it's important to find the right one. When in doubt, scout it out.

This part of the river is too dangerous for floating right now for everyone except skillful oarsmen and paddlers in small boats.

ABT and LGT graciously rowed me into a great many big rainbow and brown trout today. The river was in perfect shape and even though a wind came up later, the early morning was calm and cool and lightly overcast, and the fishing was fantastic.

We stopped to take a break in the shade at the mouth of one of the tributaries, a lovely spot where a small, crystal clear Rocky Mountan Front river comes out of its canyon and empties into the main river. Had a really nice time and a great float.

Steve (inset) rowed me into a half dozen really nice fish including at least one brook trout, which is a species I haven't caught before on this reach.

Early in the day we encountered one of my colleagues from work at the place where we launched the raft. He was gathering aquatic invertebrates (bugs, mostly) with a crew from the NHP. I think their work is part of a broader longitudinal study of the condition of the river ecosystem through time, and although it looked to me like the river was in fine condition this morning, I certain;y hope their data confirm it. And I hope it always stays as good as it is right now, so I'm glad those guys are trying to quantify it.

There weren't too many other boats out there either.

Good weather and practically perfect water conditions for Jerry and me today on a little southwestern Montana river that is becoming much too popular for its own good. It was cold early in the day and at first I regretted my decision not to bring the waterproof waders. But then it warmed up to about 70 (21C) and we were pretty comfortable after that, except that a strong wind came up in the afternoon sometimes and it was the kind of wind you have to row into pretty hard, just to move slowly downriver. There may be some hot days ahead, but maybe this will turn out to be the last day of the season when we were able to float and wade wet.

The fishing was outstanding. We caught a lot of brown trout and a fair number of rainbows, and we caught at least one excellent cutthroat-rainbow cross. Cutthroats used to be rare on this stretch but they are showing up more and more often. I guess you could say the neighborhood seems to be improving.

There were boats and people at all the river access sites, but we didn't see anybody else for the entire six hours we were actually on the river.

The river was a little too low for comfortable floating and we scraped the rocks and dragged the boat a little bit in a few areas, but it was a good hot late summer day that was overshadowed by threat of thunderstorms throughout the afternoon. The fishing was OK although most of the fish weren't very big. If you look closely at the picture, you may see that the surface of the river in the background is practically boiling with smallish fish gorging themselves on some of the tiniest mayflies we have ever seen.

On account of the low water, this part of the river has become too difficult except for skillful floaters in small boats.

There was nobody else using the river today and we didn't see anybody but a couple of duck hunters on the river. Even the fishing access sites were pretty much deserted.

It was windy at times, cloudy for most of the day and it never got any warmer than about 50 degrees (10C). Water temperature was just about 50 too. The fishing was decent, but not great. There still seems to be a lot of weed in the water and much of it is moving with the current. I caugt a few rainbows and one decent brown, Jerry caught about half a dozen rainbows like the one shown here.

Windy and a little cold, but we had the river almost all to ourselves and caught a couple dozen rainbows and browns each. What a great day of fishing! The latest in a long line of unlikely November floats. No human company at any of the access sites, either, until late in the afternoon.

Pretty windy and cold today, so nobody was out on the river except ourselves and a few waterfowl hunters upstream whom we never saw. We heard their gunfire, however, and saw one dead and one injured goose float by as we sat in my truck and waited for a squall to play itself out.

Starting out, it was not a very promising day.

It never actually turned nice, but we were able to fish without gloves.

The fishing was excellent again. All the fish were vigorous and healthy, and of course half of them were bigger than the daily average... statistically speaking.

Very windy today but not too cold except at first. Nobody was out on the river except ourselves and a few waterfowl. Here is a sure sign of winter: the golden eye ducks are back.

No, this is not a sign of winter, winter is already here when the golden eye ducks and the ruff-legged hawks come back, so it is actually winter now. But we also saw a kingfisher and a blue heron (birds that don't usually winter here) so maybe it's not winter yet. I dunno.

Jerry successfully deploys the season's first gloves.

Was it actually "freezing" or not? The jury is still out.

We even caught fish off of the boat ramp at the haul out. Once again we had the whole place to ourselves.

Good times!