Bozeman Annual Meeting Update!

So, what's with this picture, you say?  Well, for the first day in a LONG time, it's overcast and raining, and I can't see the mountains south of Bozeman.  I looked at the weather, and it is going to be 33 degrees in Cooke City, MT tonight!  This weather is a tremendous blessing as it will put some water in our streams and rivers and will drop water temperatures SIGNIFICANTLY! You may have seen the news recently of the "10,000 fish that died in the Yelowstone."  As is often the case, the media loves to grab the public attention with some sort of death and paranoia story about the end of life as we know it.  Not to say that this die off of Mountain Whitefish (VERY few trout) is not a problem.  The Mountain Whitefish (MWF) is a the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" for cold-water salmonids.  If there are problems with MWF, there are problems for trout.  We don't know the reason for the die off, but it apparently was not a pollution problem, oil spill, that sort of disaster.  It is quite likely a function of a LOT OF FISH crowded into a small area.  You put enough animals OF ANY KIND in a confined area for any period of time, and it is quite likely some will get sick.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature has pushed the Yellowstone River to near historic low flows.  I looked at the USGS streamflow website, and the Yellowstone flows are nearly 50% below the 25 year average and approaching the historic low flows of 1919.  Not good.  However, if you check out this website http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mt/nwis/uv/?site_no=06191500&PARAmeter_cd=00060,00065,00010 you will see that water temperatures are dropping, fast.  This is normal for this time of year as the days are getting shorter and the nights MUCH cooler.  I'd wager there's a good chance it will snow tonight in the mountains near Cooke City. This water temperature drop will kick in the brown trout hormones, and get them going on getting ready for the crucible of spawning.  I've done this fly fishing outfitting in Montana for nearly 40 years, and I can tell you this is the weather that will kick up the brown trout fishing.  I might have to go over to the lower Madison today!  Back to the Yellowstone, 10,000 is a lot of fish, and I am not trying to diminish the concerns of many folks.  I will tell you this about MWF in the Yellowstone, There are A LOT OF WHITEFISH in the river.  I don't know the exact figures (we don't do population estimates on MWF), but I'd guess the MWF numbers are probably around 2,000 per mile.  So, in the 125 miles of the Yellowstone between Gardiner, MT and Columbus, that's a quarter of a million, 250,000 Mountain Whitefish. My point here is don't despair about the quality of fishing we're going to have around the Annual Meeting.  Our Annual Meeting Fishing Day is September 28th, and by that time, we'll be looking at remarkable different (and better) fishing conditions.  Understand, too, that Mother Nature is remarkably resilient.  In other words, we'll be fine with fishing for the annual meeting!  If you are still thinking about attending the Annual Meeting, get going and sign up today, and remember to sign up for the Annual Meeting Fishing Day.  Bozeman is known as the "fly fishing for trout capitol of the world!"  Come out early and stay after to fish!  Without question, the 2-3 week period surrounding and including the Annual Meeting offer some of our BEST FISHING OF THE  YEAR!  Finally, if you are coming to the meeting, please remember to SUPPORT OUR TU BUSINESS MEMBERS!  We've worked hard to get lots of folks signed up for the TU Business.  Let's show them that there is value in supporting TU by supporting them.  Here's a link that will take you directly to the Montana TU Businesses.  http://www.tu.org/tu-business/MT  See you in Bozeman! 

Dave Kumlien

MGTU member and Annual Meeting Fishing Coordinator DKumlien@tu.org