July, 2011 Diary

7/4:  Happy 4th of July to anyone who might be viewing this page.  Unfortunately for the fisher people, it's not a particularly pleasant summer.  All of our local streams are running at least bank full due to the 500% of normal snow depth we have this year.

Ditto for Montana and Wyoming and most of the rest of the West.  Even the Green below Flaming Gorge is completely in a rage at 8400 cubes.  The trail from the Spillway to Little Hole is completely destroyed and may be unusable for the rest of this year.  See this video for a quick shot of what the water's like there.

Even Gore Creek, just a hundred feet from our condo is running at four times its normal flow:  Just how long the runoff will continue is anyone's guess, but we're betting it will be at least the first week of August before anything's going to be fishable around here.

So happily, Sue & I are leaving tomorrow for the next couple of weeks to enjoy a nice trip to Turkey to help celebrate her birthday this year.  Will write an update to this report when we get back home in the middle of July.

Last Logbook Entry  � for previous day

7/25:  Desperate times call for desperate measures - so they say.  I could no longer stand not being on the water so rode my bike out along Gore Creek this morning in the hopes of at least pinging a fish or two.

That actually did happen though it wasn't easy nor a whole lot of fun.  With the flows still three times normal averages, 90% of the places I'd usually be able to throw a fly were not available for doing that.

The other issue is the water temperature which still feels like snowmelt instead of a summer flow.  Thus no hatches yet.  Apparently the caddis are starting up on the Eagle, but the Gore is still way too cold.

Anyway.  I did play a few fish before finally landing some brookies and a lone brown in the creek and then a handful more of the brooks in a golf course pond.  Not great fun but surely better than nothing at all.  The fish took either a #16 WRS or a #16 dark copper john.

Here's a short video of the activity:

7/26:  For anyone planning on trying to fish the Green below the dam, I just had a reply to my question about the destruction of the trail between Spillway and Little Hole.  According to the Forest Service person, the trail is open but can be very difficult to traverse due to the generalized destruction of the boardwalk sections.

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