News from Montana

Long term and short term conditions look great on the Mighty Mo.

Weather:
 

The general  long term weather forecast is that we are in a La Nina pattern that will be moderating into a neutral position for July , and August.
Forecasts point to a 50/50 percent chance of normal precipitation in May and June with lower than normal temperatures. There is no drought forecasted for our area in the long term forecast.

Streamflows:

The snow /water equivalent for our drainage 120% of normal as of April 1. 

The Runoff is predicted to be 107% of normal. Canyon Ferry is 73% full as of April 1^st. Maximum most probable flows below Holter are expected to be 10,000cfs to 15,000cfs in June moderating to 7500cfs in July and average running flow of 4100cfs all year.www.usbr.gov/gp/hydromet/ is the website to see all this information

 

 

Rain bows: Craig stretch 2800per mile Cascade stretch 1706 per mile

Brown trout: Craig stretch 569 per mile cascade stretch 482 per mile

Whirling Disease

 

Results of a 4 year study by Missouri River fishery biologist Grant Greysack trying to understand why whirling disease had not crashed the Missouri river fishery as was the case on the Madison river loosing 90% of their population:
 
The traditional thoughts were that all of the trout below the Dearborn river spawned up the Dearborn or Sheep Creek and that all the fish above Craig spawned in the Little Prickly Pear Creek drainage. By the  use of radio monitoring,  rainbow and brown trout were tracked over a period of 4 years.  The findings indicate that individual trout on the Missouri are spawning in a different location every year. For example, a Rainbow tagged below Holter Dam  traveled downstream to the Dearborn and went 34 miles up the Dearborn to spawn. The next year the same Rainbow traveled from the below Holter Dam to a mile below the Dearborn confluence with the Missouri River and spawned.  And, in the next following year,  the Raibow traveled from below Holter Dam to the Dearborn went 6 miles upstream and spawned. This traveling phenomenon limited the infection rate of individual trout off spring . Greysack also found that a 15 inch Rainbow or Brown can produce just as many eggs as a 18 inch fish adding to the fertility of our Missouri river fish.
 

In conclusion the system has reached equilibrium and will not likely see any impact from whirling disease in the foreseeable future. We have a resilient fishery with a very genetically complex group of trout in it. 

Isn't that a very cool bit of natural diversity?

Chris