June 6, 2010- H2 uh O....

We had a rare break in the weather yesterday. So, I loaded Jack up and we headed out to check on some water conditions. The rain has been relentless for days now. It seems like everything has jumped up in flow and gotten dirtier.

Leaving West Yellowstone we headed north along 191 towards Hebgen. The Madison above Hebgen was bank-full and brown as were Cougar and Duck Creeks. Grayling Creek was cranking out into the maze of willows between the highway and the lake.

Hebgen is close to full-pond (96%), and covered up in big midges. The inflow is currently over 3500cfs, and they bumped up the outflow on the Madison yesterday to nearly 950cfs. Those Madison flows are going to have to get much higher in the coming days to accommodate all of the water that's still to come.

I'm sure glad they filled the reservoir and ran the river at a trickle during the core of the spawning season, just to dump it all now. Who's in charge here anyway, Rain Man?

The Madison below Hebgen (between the lakes) was packed with people. Every inch of fishable water had a thingamabobber on top of it. Moving down, Cabin Creek was puking mud. The flow was strong enough to completely overtake the Madison flow as soon as they came together - no half-and-half downstream. Beaver Creek looked like you could shovel it. Quake Lake was, surprisingly, not brown. It still had that green color to it. So, the river downstream was very fishable. But, I have to think that that's going to slowly deteriorate as Quake fills with pure mud from Cabin and Beaver Creeks.

Moving downstream into the float stretch, mud from the West Fork had turned the river-left half of the Madison pure, dark brown.  With mud on its way through Quake Lake, and the inevitable cranking of the flows from Hebgen, I think we're going to be looking squarely at a goat-show down here for a while.

Of cousre, there's always the H-Fork.......Stay Tuned.