E-16: Ready, Set, Flow!!

Fellow E-16ers:

The time is now upon us where, just a tad more than 45 days before the Wonderful Ones descend upon Missoula to mark Opening Day of Extravaganza 2016, we begin to sit up in our chairs, keep a close eye on the western Montana temperature gauge and assess just what kind of a snow melt/runoff we are going to be presented by Mother Nature.

The runoff is a critical element of our fishing fortunes each year and, for the past nine (count ‘em!) years now we have been privately monitoring and chronicling the run off as it has occurred right out of Headquarters’ doors on the world famous Rock Creek that we abut. Check out the attached chart which shows you just how much the runoff varies from year to year. Measured in cubic feet per second of water flow, you can see how, beginning on our traditional beginning date of April 27th (just two days from now) the water flow begins at a (s)low pace and, as temperatures rise during the months of May and June, the upper clime snow pack begins to melt and send water downstream from thousands of rivulets, into creeks, and then into our main river systems. As this flow begins, water clarity declines as the turbidity (lack of visibility) increases and the water flow increases, thereby flushing out the river systems of their detritus.

And how the water flow has varied over the years! Check out last year’s flow in red where we began with a 50% of normal snow pack due to early April premature runoff and ended with a low flow during E-15 and compare that to the extraordinarily high runoff year of 2011 where we began with 400% of combined snow pack and snow water content, resulting in such high waters that we had to bus over the Continental Divide to the more modestly contained Missouri River for our fishing days. And check out my favorite year of them all, 2009 (in black) where we had a perfect bell curve flow and resulting great local fishing during E-10.

Where will we be this year, you ask? Well our heat has already arrived in the Bitterroot mountains such that as we begin charting this year the Bitterroot River Basin is currently tracking now at 71% of 20 year norms with a year-to-date precipitation realization of 97% of the same norm. So, as we go into the runoff season we are starting with three quarters of a deck of cards and, beginning in two days, we will lay in tour 2016 comparable base line flow numbers as they evolve.

We start off fifty percent ahead of last year, gang, and what that tells me is that we are going to have prime time fishing conditions come June 11th and the arrivals of Dem Ones! I will give you now updated flow reports on Monday and Friday of each of the ensuing weeks as well as the percentile of snow yet in them thar hills!

Best to all on the now cusp of it all,

Rock Creek Ron
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