River Wire Blog

Radio transmitters unveil surprising results.  Read this very interesting FWP study here.  Perhaps the results give us a clue as to why the Missouri's trout are not impacted by whirling disease. Read more

My industry analysis, Have You Been to a Good Fly Shop Lately?,did what I hoped. Doors to candid conversations about the future of the fly fishing industry are a little easier to open.   I knew that there would be some bruising as a result of the article, but the pain has been... Read more

The Missouri River continues to be a major attraction for anglers in central Montana.  Biologists conduct population estimates of brown trout in May because many of the rainbow trout are in the tributaries spawning.  In the Craig section, the estimate of brown trout>10 inches was... Read more

There's a storm brewing that could change fly fishing forever. Mass distribution of fly fishing products seriously threatens the fly fishing culture as we know it.      In today's information packed world, being concise is a virtue.  This newsletter was written with industry... Read more

Montana's state-wide mountain snow water content was 90 percent of average and 80 percent of last year. West of the Divide snowpack was 93 percent of average and 84 percent of last year. East of the Divide snowpack was 90 percent of average and 81 percent of last year.  See the full... Read more

Maintenance projects and, more importantly, low snowpacks force river flow reductions. From the Bureau of Reclamation: As part of the new SCADA upgrade system, a 4-hour maintenance outage is scheduled at the Canyon Ferry powerplant on January 24, 2012 to replace each of the unit’s... Read more

From the Great Falls Tribune...... A statewide report shows a drastic decrease in mountain snowpack from a year ago as the snowfall season approaches its midpoint. So far Montana's river basins are 82 percent of average prior to the spring runoff season that usually begins in... Read more