Photos from Missoula March 2011

Fellow Extravaganzers:

 

One of the (many) beautiful things about Montana is that, except on some of the tributary spawning creeks, there is no “fishing season”—every day on the Bitterroot River is a fishing day and, yes, as attested to in the attached photos, fish do eat during the winter months…even the big ones!!  

 

While I don’t have the measurements of the fish shown above, I can tell you from experience that there are at least two 20 inchers among the bunch caught by Group One’s Brian “Moraine” Shepard and son Josef “Fear The Beard” Shepard—way to go guys!!  The two of them are resident this week in our collectively owned Blackfoot Tree House (which, yes, is now finally done in all particulars) and neither rain, sleet nor snow (and they have already witnessed all three of them!) have interfered with this year’s early spring skwala hatch…dry flies on the Bitterroot; what a beautiful sight that be!!

 

Best to all in the early warm up stage of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

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Double Up With Double Up Outfitters!!

What a fantastic way to start out Fishing Season 2011 yesterday was, gang!

 

As the attached pics reflect, an overcast day did not dampen a 20+ fish day with our realtor John Horton, shown above first bankside with mascot Buddy holding a football sized 18” Bitterroot rainbow lugger and then with his own self inflicted double—John was fishing a dry fly and, beneath it, a San Juan worm, the topside yielding his primo cutthroat held above on the left in his right hand (yes, I know, fishing can be confusing!)—see the red “cut mark” beneath the fish’s chin [from which it gets its name]—and a gorgeous rainbow in the other donned in its winteresque dark hues taking his dropper at the same moment.

 

We fished the upper portion of the Bitterroot (shown well in the last of the photos above), floating over 12 miles from Darby towards Hamilton where the water was gin clear, the dry fly fishing outstanding and the braided river system glistening (and its fish robust population flourishing) after its now fourth straight season of post-drought water flow recovery.

 

It is very, very clear gang that (a) we are going to have plenty of water to fish during E-11 and (b) this is going to be the Year of the Big Fish…bueno, bueno, bueno!!

 

Best to all from the now christened scene of it all!!

 

RCR-----<’///>ß-----<’///><

 

  

Name That Extravagant Fish!!

Fellow Extravaganzers:

 

As you seasoned (and, likewise, unspiced) veterans out there know, each year we have several extravagant contests in which we award various bottles of our primo private labeled “Rockin’ C” vino—to be delivered to you upon your arrival(s) here for either immediate consumption or, most often, a return journey home.  The highlight of our private stash is our nationally recognized (by the wine editor of USA Today, no less) private reserve cabernet sauvignon series, the top drawer of which is our 2001 vintage of that issue (of which there are only exactly four bottles left!).

 

As you vets also know, Extravaganza Headquarters is resident to a plethora of hand-done carved wood, molten bronze and hand-crafted ironwork, the latest addition to which is displayed for the first time in the attached photos and is (get this) a to-scale 12’ long westslope cutthroat (see recent releases about the history of this wonderful fish as Montana’s state fish) rising to a similarly-to-scale 15” salmonfly, both this morning installed on the landward wall of our main house—a now-completed project that has been three years in the making.  The lower portion of this one-of-a-kind fish specimen will serve as a trellis for rising summertime vines with the top to remain stationery in the fish’s perpetual leap for June nourishment (the salmonfly is one of the world’s largest stoneflies that is found only on a handful of Western US streams—averaging over 2 ½” in real life size—and our own backyard’s Rock Creek is renowned and traveled to world-wide for its mid-June salmonfly hatch).

 

Three (years of) cheers to our landscape designer Eric Nystrom of Pioneer Earthworks LLC (shown above as he does his beauties’ final installation)…NOW the flag is up to “name that fish”, the winner of which (to be determined by your own Hostess With The Mostess, Koctail Kathy, in her sole judgment) will take home with him or her one of those four remaining bottles of ’01 Rock Creek Red.

 

Place you entries by reply email to yours truly, each of which will be posted to this (y)our 2011 Extravaganza blogsite [which now should be logged in as one of your “favorites”, for, as E-11 becomes nearer, most all of your Extravagant communications will be through that medium].  Let’s see, some names that quickly come to mind are “Scarfish”, “Cuttdaddy” and “KK Momma Mia”—the latter of which having no chance of winning, I might add!

 

Sooo, bring it on E-11ers…”name that extravagant fish”…there is no limit to the number of entries that you can post!!

 

Best to all with great joy, for tomorrow I fish my first ’11 day with our own Propaneless as we launch onto our E-11 home river, the 52 mile long Bitterroot River, with dry fly imitations of the smaller stonefly brother to the salmonfly, the skwala…photos of that event to come your way over the weekend!!

 

Rock Creek Ron

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Tween Time In Montana

Sunday Greetings from Montana, fellow E-11ers!!

 

As the attached photos depict, it is, indeed, “tween time” here in Montana—the general color of the day is a drab gray, during the days it doesn’t quite know whether to rain or snow (so it does both) and, with the gradual melting of this year’s excessive and impressive ground snow, the springly process of rejuvenation is slowly underway, as witnessed by the robin’s nest shown in the first photo above that has reappeared amongst the snow on our backyard’s yet winter dormant lawn, the “eagle melt” in our front yard and, in the last shot (my favorite, btw), the early budding out of 2011’s new tree growth.

 

With our arrival back in God’s country and with the almost daily arrival now of goods and supplies that will become a part of Extravaganza 2011, I know that our ninth foray into the wonders of Western Montana is rapidly winging its way our way.  Yesterday I had the great privilege to be with Carolyn Persico, our land base purveyor, at the Rock Creek Mercantile to muse with her on this, our very first Extravaganza, without the physical presence of her husband, Doug, (Doug passed on during the off season and now participates with us from above), as well as to reach out to our Double Up Outfitter, John “The Great but Propaneless” Gould to prepare for our first scheduled 2011 trip on the Bitterroot River together this coming Friday.  Yesterday, it was nice to purchase my tenth (count ‘em) year-long Montana fishing license from Carolyn (for the whopping sum of $70, I might add—simply the best deal in the world!); and I can’t wait to try out my brand spankin’ new 9’ 5 wt B2X Winston fly rod with Propaneless in just a few days now.  My annual business succession plan (where “success” is the root word) is to spend 30 days fishing each year, and it is nigh time to get to plan!

 

Now, you rookies out there ask “Why is this Great guide also called ‘Propaneless’?”  Well, first off, sooner or later, everyone who travels here garners a new nickname and, after years of fishing with us, John’s nickname finally found him [that’s the way it works here…the name does find you] in 2009 when, on the very first day of fishing with me during E-09, John forgot to bring along the propane for a streamside hot lunch (fortunately, there was another E-09 boat right behind us who John then “invited to join us for lunch”), but, then, the very next day made the same moniker-naming fatal error when fishing apart from all with yet-again-returning-this-year veteran Group Oners John “SOS” Reimann and Demetry “The Ghost” Kondrasheff on the {very} upper West Fork of the Bitterroot.  Hence, truly Great but forever likewise known as “Propaneless”.

 

Your Hostess With The Mostess will be resident here in God’s own backyard, in the course of which I will be providing you with more thousand word images and reports from the very scene of it all!

 

Best to all tween it all!

 

Rock Creek Ron

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FW: The Standard Bearers of Montana

An interesting tidbit just came my way from our veteran Group Threer, Jeff “FWP” Hagener [Jeff is the past (long term) executive director of the State of Montana’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department {and current Development Director for our own Montana Wildlife Federation}]:  It is his mother, Toni, that is accredited to the accretion of the Bluebunch Wheat Grass as Montana’s “State Grass”…[by contrast, here in California, if there were to be such a “state grass”, in this day and age I am sure that it would be lauded for its would-be medicinal purposes; in fact, some suggest that CA is a virtual state of grass!!].

 

Best to all from the soggy Bay Area!

 

RCR-----<’///><

 

p.s. KK and I travel to MT tomorrow so we can give you an on-the-scene update of conditions there; in that regard, our good friend George Kesel of Kesel’s Fly Shop emailed me earlier today that, where the Missoula Valley typically receives around 12 inches of snow by this time of the year, this year the snowfall tally is well over 50”!!

 

    

The Standard Bearers of Montana

 

Fellow E-11ers:

 

Well, if it seems like forever since you have heard from me it (unusually so) has been!  But strap on your email belts for, as we get closer and closer each day to Opening Day of Extravaganza 2011, that is soon to be remedied.

 

To tee things up, I thought you would enjoy the attached excerpt from the State of Montana’s wonderful award-winning Montana Outdoors magazine [not posted to Der Blog—the article is in the magazine’s March-April, 2011 issue].  History is a beautiful thing and the attached tells stories of the emblems of Montana (and their history) that will make even the most wary of history buff smile.  Who would have guessed that the State butterfly is the Mourning Cloak (so named because its color matches the color of ages-ago Montana coats worn to funerals) or that the State fossil (I never even knew that states had State fossils!) was the clustering Maiasaura or that the original resolution adopting the State Seal contained a typo in its Spanish logo??

 

With the now (later) dawning of Daylights Savings Time, keep your email eyes peeled as E-11 quickly approaches, knowing that, each day in Montana, there is now 6 more hours of daylight as we approach our Summer Equinox (where and when it is light at Extravaganza Headquarters to well past 10:00 p.m.).  Your Hostess With the Mostess, Kocktail Kathy, and I travel to HQ this Thursday from whence I will give you photo evidence and a datedown/update on just where we stand snowpack-wise.  As a preview, we are still tracking one of the highest snowfall levels in recorded history, with snowpack levels in the Bitterroot Valley averaging well over 125% of normal [by way of comparison, this time last year we were well less than half of that number].

 

Enjoy the attached reading material and begin thinking Montana…to that end, I received an email report from our wonderful Double Up Outfitter John “The Great but Propaneless” [yes, rookies, there is a story to be told with that name!] Gould that, today, he landed his first 2011 fish on a dry fly which prompted me to book a trip with him next Friday the 25^th to see if his fishing prowess yet matched his marvelous salesmanship!

 

Best to all in early anticipation of it all,

 

Rock Creek Ron

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