October 2, 2008 - Steve Hoovler

Somehow, October crept up on us like a Supreme Court question in a Sarah Palin interview. I never saw it coming, and now that it's here, I don't have the slightest clue what to do with it.

September has a way of lulling me into a false sense of never-ending Summer. Even the word "September" sounds warm and pleasant. And, in fact it's been a gorgeous month. But, October is a different story, it's truely Fall. The aspens and cottonwoods are all in color. It's well below freezing each morning. And, despite deceptively warm days, you know what's right around the corner. It's a bittersweet feeling for me each year. I can never get enough of the Summer season, but I can't wait for the Fall to arrive.

Before our Summer officially came to a close, engineers at Hebgen Dam devised a fix for the broken gate. Evidently, as the crew faithfully slid one stop log after another in front of the headgate only to see it get sucked into the tube and shot out the other side, one of the workers suggested, and when I imagine this it's in the voice of one of the Simpson's characters, "Hey, why don't we tie four of those logs together at the same time?"  What do you know? It worked.  Over several days the flows were brought back down to normal levels, and the fishing has adjusted back to it's normal Fall routine.

Last week I spent several days on the Missouri with fly fishing guide extraordinaires Pat Bond and Joe Moore. We fished with a fun group of guys from California. The weather was beautiful for each of our days. Too beautiful, unfortunately, for very consistent dry fly fishing, but we manged to find some nice big Missouri River fish regardless. Thanks for a fun trip guys. I hope to do it again.

As Fall progresses at an all too rapid pace, I'll spend more time behind a pointing dog than the oars, but stay tuned regardless. I'll get you a report.