The sky lately has been big in many ways. From menacing thunderheads to small puffy high contrast cumulous clouds. It's just a great time to be out poking around. Here's a shot from today taken from a tripod on top of my car:
Big Wood River
Took a walk down to the Big Wood last night around 9 PM. It's amazing how light it is after 9 PM. Summer is on the way! The river is still on the rise and has decent clarity. With wet weather in store through at least Sunday, we should be seeing a steady rise in the flow. This much needed rain is certainly helping our flows and it's also greening up our hills. Phlox, blue stemmed grass and arrowleaf balsamroot are all starting to pop on the south and south west facing slopes in Hailey and south.
Desert Black and White
Thought I would add two black and white shots from today. Here they are...
Little Wood River
No pictures of the Little Wood today but a few shots of the desert. I usually have black and white in mind when I do landscapes but the green is so strong at the moment, even in the desert, I resisted the temptation. The water on the Little Wood has come down--probably due to agricultural use--and is very clear. Unfortunatley the Little Wood is mainly a dink fest with a respectable brown hard to come by. The Big Wood has seen a bump in flow and clarity. It's running a bit off color and 775 cfs at the time of writing this.
PMD's and Virga
Just got back from a quick spin down to Silver Creek hoping to capture some rising fish. Well..., the wind was blowing and there were no rising fish but a few PMD's were fluttering around on the water post emergence and I netted a few. I used a 105 2.8 macro with a focusing rail.
As I was leaving a small thunderhead was developing above the Nature Conservancy. I took a few quick clicks of the cloud. The virga--rain evaporating in the air before it hits the ground--reminded me of smoke and that's how I tried to capture it.
4 Winds Saloon & Dillon, MT
Here is Linda, the owner of the 4 Winds Saloon. I have been wanting to stop in for a long time and finally had my chance. Her family bought the bar in 1972. It's in Butte City which is just east of Arco, Idaho. During the day she works as a laborer at one of the Idaho Nuclear Lab sites. The folks in the 4 Winds were more than affable, in fact, we even got a two song guitar performance by Greg, a long time patron. I asked Linda how many people over the years she had to kick out of the bar. Her response was a smile and a walk to the bartender side where she quickly whipped out a menacing stick and struck the top of the bar. She did so adeptly too. She told of the people she's used the stick on over the years. I am glad I am not one of those... Her hat read, "4 Winds Bitch."
On the fishing front, Zac Mayhew and I floated the Beaverhead yesterday. Despite the beautiful weather the fishing was SLOW. 230 cfs and caddis but very few fish eating for us...
Here's Poindexter Slough. Not a whole lot was going on. Just a few caddis fluttered around. Didn't see a fish feed on the surface.
New iphone gallery
I just added an iphone picture gallery to the galleries section of this site. I'll be adding to it periodically. I am heading off to the Beaverhead this afternoon for a couple of days. Weather is improving over there and here and there has apparently been a bunch of caddis and baetis on the Beav. We'll see...
May Clouds and Picabo
The clouds this May have been outstanding. Yeah, it's been windy, a bit wet and a bit colder than normal. Why not shoot black and white?
Also, for Steelheaders all over and especially in Oregon, great news: The Gold Ray Dam on the Rogue River is scheduled to be taken down. It's 106 years old and roughly 157 miles upstream from the mouth of the Pacific. Here's a link to an article on it: http://waterwatch.org/
Sunset At Silver Creek
Spent another beautiful evening at Silver Creek. Ran into a rather old cow moose. Plenty of grey hair on her back and had some difficulty walking. There seem to be a lot of moose sightings at the moment within the Nature Conservancy.
The Nature Conservancy held a meeting yesterday at the Preserve Cabin which was very well attended. Mark Hill of Ecosystem Sciences Foundation out of Boise spoke and presented a slide show. The Nature Conservancy has teamed up with Mark to develop a holistic watershed enhancement plan for the entire Silver Creek watershed including tributaries. He showed a past project of his in the Owens Valley in California and how by pushing cattle and agricultural fields off the stream banks of watersheads, the streams run deeper, cooler and faster with far healthier streamside vegetation. His slides served as good examples of how certain management policies really do help a watershed. Siltation and water temps are two of the issues he discussed regarding Silver Cr. In any event, if you have further questions contact Dayna, the preserve Manager or check out their site: http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/idaho/preserves/art20609.html
More rising trout
Here are some more rising trout shots I took yesterday. After cropping a few of the images to take a much closer look (I looked at the mouth & what the fish was about to eat at 2:1) I noticed first, there were midges on the water I didn't even see while taking the shots. Also, I twice captured a fish coming up to take what appeared to be nothing but on MUCH closer inspection (so grainy I won't post here) it appeared to be an empty midge exoskeleton... Stuff to note. I am heading down to Silver Creek again today. I can't get enough of it. Should be a good baetis day given the cloudy weather. We'll see...
Rising Trout
While I was down at Silver Creek today there were quite a few baetis coming off and I thought I'd try and get a few "rise and bug" close-ups. I shot over 500 frames and have only looked at a few of them. I had to sit still in the same spot and let the fish "adjust" to my presence before they started to feed as though I was not there. It was pretty interesting to watch the fish decide which baetis to eat. Even though fishing season is closed, there is no doubt these fish are still selective. I watched on many occassions a certain rainbow look closely at a baetis and at the last moment refuse it and move on. Pretty cool stuff.
First remote post using the iphone
OK, I am sitting down at the Nature Conservancy on Silver Creek at the moment. I am just out taking a few shots of feeding fish and remote thunderheads. The doves and sand hill cranes have showed up. Other than not being able to fish down here at the moment (our fishing season opens on the Saturday of Memorial Weekend) May is a great time to be poking around Silver Cr. There are essentially no human things around. There are as many swallows eating the newly emerged baetis as there are trout. Here's a pic I just shot with the iphone. I converted it to black and white using the Best Camera application (http://www.thebestcamera.com/). I'll post my feeding trout shots soon.
Drunella Grandis
OK, don't get too excited. These green drake nymphs (drunella grandis) are not emerging yet, but they are all over the shallow slowish water very close to the banks. I took a walk over to the Big Wood in Hailey this afternoon and discovered the green drake nymphs while looking for the perfect skipping rock. There really were a lot of bugs! These green drake nymphs are clingers which means they are great at attaching themselves to something underwater, usually a rock or submerged branch, but when they become dislodged they are carried by the current and stay suspended for sometime before re-attaching themselves to another hold. What this means is they are very easy targets for trout once they become dislodged.
On another note, the Big Wood is very low and very clear for this time of year. As of this afternoon the river was flowing at approx. 380 cfs and the median for this time of year is over 1,000 cfs. Our low elevation snow has already melted and it has been cooler than average. We will still see a substantial bump in the river once it FINALLY gets warm. Openning day fishing on the Big Wood this year is a real possibility.
Abby Grosvenor's art
I just took some shots of Abby Grosvenor's new art for her gallery card. Her work will be up at Gilman Contemporary in Ketchum starting Friday May 28th. It's great stuff and will certainly be worth a look. Here's a link to the Gilman Contemporary site: http://www.gilmancontemporary.com/ Also, here's a quick look at a few of Abby's new pieces:
New Web site!!!
Well..., it's finally up and running. This blog should be far more user friendly than my past blog and I hope it becomes useful in many ways. I am using squarespace as my web publisher and they have some pretty cool features including an application for the iphone that allows me to manage much of this site remotely, which means I can be on the river or a shoot somewhere and speak to the conditions, hatches or lack therof, wind, or whatever it is I feel like rambling on about that is relevant enough to photography and or fly fishing. I can also update this blog from my iphone. That's just one of the cool features. Another feature is, you can subscribe to this blog. That's right, just go to the link on the right hand side of this page to do so.
I also plan on using this blog as a fishing report for the Sun Valley, ID area and other places I guide including Yellowstone. It will be updated regularly...
More to come!