March

A few weeks ago I caught trout in a drainage 45 minutes and 2000' of elevation away.  That was the last week of February and there was no snow anywhere below 8000'.  The creeks were running a little high but generally clear, and it could have been May except for the absence of greenery in the hills.

Fast forward to now and we've endured back to back storms that, even at our lower foothill elevation, have dropped several inches of snow.  The mountains around our ranch have remained crowned in ice which is unusual since they only reach to about 4000'.  

Even shady north facing hillsides on the ranch have kept some snow patches.  The snowpack wasn't desperate enough this year for this to count as a "Miracle March," but as I sit writing this I am watching the rain gauge creep past an inch just for the last few hours; we've surpassed last year's rainfall by a significant amount and that feels pretty miraculous.  In fact we had more snow this year than ever before at this ranch.

Snow never comes at an opportune time for adults - contrasted to kids, who never have in inopportune time for snow.  I had to travel through two storms for callouts to work, and our lonely and low-priority county road had not seen a plow either time.  That makes for a tense drive in the early morning hours.

All that to say that those creeks higher up are not going to be running clear for very long.  The waters I fished in February are probably running high and fast already, since the temperatures at that elevation are hovering around the freezing point.  Give it a few more weeks and most of that mid-elevation snow is going to melt and swell those creeks quickly.  The traditional trout opener of April 15th will be pretty much unfishable in all but the smallest tributaries.

That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.  Excited as I get to start the season, it never really gets into full swing until July in the mid to high elevations.  Most of the fishing before that is a long search for fishable water.  Given the amount of snow that has come down over the last week, I don't expect that many of the high elevation creeks will even be accessible until June - and that just means a longer season on the back end.  September, October, and even November will be full of excellent fishing as the flows drop and the water clears.  By the time the smaller creeks are getting thin and spooky, the first storms of autumn will be coming through.

So until then I watch the raingauge and I think about the high country to which the water falling from the sky connects me so deeply.