E-17 Blogsite Announced; Annual Flow Charts to Follow!!

E-17ers:

On the eve of my overseas departure, gang, I want to reach out to you to provide you with a dated-down version of our annual flow charts and to let you know that, beginning with the end of this month, once again, we will be carefully tracking the 2017 runoff using, as we have in the past, our home Rock Creek as the baseline for measurement. You can see from the attached chart that the lifelines of runoffs varies tremendously from year to year---last year, 2015 and 2010 were “low water years” with 2008 and 2011 excessively high water year. What we want to see is a perfect bell curve, as was the case in 2009 (the black line on our graph) where, come May, temperatures gradually increased with resultant increase in discharge per cubic foot reaching a crescendo in late May and precipitously dropping come June first and leveling off right about the time of Group One’s arrival on the scene.

Also, as we have done for the past several years, you rookies should be aware that we have set up a blogsite for Extravaganza 2017 and, on that www.montanaextravaganza2017.blogspot.com site you will find updated postings of our discharge flow chart, a weather link, a link to our key Extravaganza suppliers and purveyors as well as messages just like this one. Be sure to mark this site as one of your “Favorites” and, come you trip there, share the site with others as, on a daily basis, we will be posting both stories and photos of each day’s Extravagant events!

As for me, my bags are now packed and I am headed to Europe for a boat tour of the Danube—being on a boat for 10 days without a fishing rod in hand, however, will be a test of endurance an patience for me!

Viva la Extravaganza!!

Best to all,

Rock Creek Ron
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FW: A(nother) Montana Spring Day!

There goes the Group One neighborhood!!

RCR

Hi Ron,

Beautiful picture!! Hope all is well with you and family…..happy safe travels across the pond and back, my friend.

The So-Cal contingency is ready, willing and able for the June assault of Missoula river systems. Perhaps we will refer to the assault as

C-Day ---- Catching Day!!

Craig Benjamin, CFP
Marquis Financial

A(nother) Montana Spring Day!

As we sashay towards the Ides of April, and as I get ready to depart for 10 days in Europe come that Tax Day, it sure looks like, unlike the story for the past two Extravaganza years, chilly weather will be the mantra for this important border month, and that bodes really well for our June fishing fortunes just two months from now!!

See y'all on the flip side of the Danube!

RCR---<'///:><

E-17 Early April Update

Greetings, fellow E-17ers:

Well, here we are, in the early days of April and rapidly approaching sixty (count' em!) days until the Wonderful Ones bless Montana with the present of their presence! And what a chilly April it is starting out to be, as witnessed by the above photos from Headquarters taken just this morning…snow, snow, and more snow. So much so that the year to date precipitation averages for Montana are now tracking over 120% of twenty year averages, with the snow water content of the accumulated snow at the higher elevations right at 102% of 20 year mean averages…bueno, bueno, bueno!!

Compare those numbers, if you would, with those that I just pulled off the NRCS website for California where, reflective of the unusually rainy season that we have witnessed here, the comparable numbers are precipitation levels AND water content levels at over 200% of 20 year averages, just as they were in 2011 in Montana when the resulting runoff was so horrifically high that, for multiple reasons, we had to motor coach it over the continental divide to fish, with great success, btw, the Mighty Missouri River. Not this year, however!

Gang: April is a game changing month for us for, just as professional basketball morphs into the playoffs during this month, Mother Nature reveals her full hand to us as to just what She has in store for us runoff-wise. Witness the last two Aprils, where, just at this very time of the year the precipitation and snow water content numbers were identical to what they are for us today BUT in each of those two Aprils temperatures climbed way above norm such as that in each of those two years fully one half of the accumulated snow mass was prematurely sent downstream and, come the traditional runoff month of May, each of those years we effectively started with 50% of twenty year norms, resulting each year in low water levels with higher temperatures come each July. Each of those two years we fared well, nonetheless, but things would have been a heck of a lot better for us had we witnessed a "normal runoff" in each.

So, now is the time to sit up straighter in our chairs, to sharpen our pencils and to take careful notice of what is to occur in the climes of Western Montana. If today's pics are any indication, however, a coolish April should be in our forecast thereby further enhancing our fishing fortunes come just sixty days from now!

More to follow as things quickly move from the theoretical to the practical!!

Rock Creek Ron
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