Big Hole skwala hatch is in full swing; but the bad news is the early runoff is in full swing also.

Visibilty at Glen yesterday afternoon was still in the ballpark, barely, but this morning the river is up to 1700+ and still rising. SO...who knows. On another mission we stopped to check out the bugs and walking just a short piece of the bank below the FAS ramp found several. Gale shot this adult while I did my best to keep it on the stone.

Bowing to temptation I rigged up and fished a wooly worm from the bridge downstream 100 yards or so with nary a bump. Duty calling, on that note, derigged and we continued on our way. Proving? I guess actually nothing more than wrong fly, feeble attempt, bad timing (rising river and all), bad fishing...all the above? As I say who knows?

We found this handsome honey-moon couple, a drake and hen hooded merganser,  swimming in a slough of the river, as yet not much affected by the runoff...my guess is won't be long until it too turns brown and ugly.

Thinkin' Spring

The other day I started my monthly piece for the March issue Big Sky Outdoor News and Adventure tentatively titled "The Hunt for the Mysterious Skwala." To be sure one of the first and a real harbinger of spring, but that's not what I want to talk about today.

What pulling up the skwalas did was got me to thinkin' about spring. Not so much the coming of warmer temperatures--we all know all too well how cruel and stingy Ma Nature can be and too often is about doling out springtime warmth in the weeks and even months following the solstice.

No, what I'm looking forward to are the sights and sounds of spring.

The sounds of running water, returning colorful songbirds trilling it seems behind every bush. The Exalted Ruler's heated crescendo reverberating loud and clear from a nearby river bottom. The spreading rings of slurping trout in a neighborhood spring creek. Ducks squealing and geese hronking anywhere there's open water. The sagebrush sea featuring once again the odd, unmistakeable sounds (to me much the same as the sound of Pap's old John Deere struggling to get going)and the inimitable show a small army strutting sage hen cocks bedecked in their finest trying their damnedest to entice the ladies. And all about the soothing whisper of a spring dawn wind which no matter how cold the air temperature somehow seems to have lost its nasty winter bite.

Spring for us is indeed a busy time.

Of course there's fishing and sage hen viewing, renewing acquaintances with old feathered friends and hopefully meeting a few new ones. All the while trying desperately to capture it all on film. Perhaps this will be the spring to at last discover a new turkey spot--as Gale says do you suppose one a little closer to home (our traditional spot lands us way out east near Ekalaka). Or maybe this will be the spring we elect to take on nothing more adventurous than just floating more ofen our beloved Big Hole.

Well, like I like to say you just never know but one thing sure there's always somethin'...Later.