Greetings, fellow E-15ers, wowie wowie are we getting very, very close to the Opening Day of E-15, as in exactly one month from today your E-15 now six year old black lab mascot and I will be driving to Montana to do the final week’s preparation for your then very imminent arrival(s).
Attached for your files and perusal is the final E-15 roster boasting 62+ participants from over half a dozen states (one of which being the State of Confusion!) and a multiplicity of returning veterans as well as a healthy splash of rookies to perpetuate our ongoing Darwinism (yes, gang, the Extravaganza will ride again in 2016!!). Also attached is a preliminary copy of this year’s calendar of events as displayed on our Month-at-a-Glance which, group by wonderful group, shows a full agenda of presenters who will be joining us each evening après fishing to update all of us on the multivarious environmental activities that I am involved in all of which have an eye towards preserving the glories of Montana for the next generation(s). Witness Group One who will see a visit from my dear friend MT cabinet officer Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Jeff Hagener as well as a last night invasion by the one and only fab honky tonker Bob Wire; as well as Group Two who will see the annual Tattoo-return of Montana Matters Troubadour Shane Clouse; and Dem Threes who will have a full plate of presentations by the Montana Outdoor Legacy Foundation on its grizzly bear relocation progress, by both the Montana and National Wildlife Federations as well as see the final night’s featured presentation by the Montana Natural History Center (for whom, group by wonderful group, we are going to raise sufficient funds for them to purchase a new school bus to enable them to activate their outreach program to get grammar school kids out into nature—a program confusingly recently cut by the state school system but taken up and filled in quickly by the Natural History Center…our new to-be-purchased bus, to be named “Rocky”, btw, may well be in our driveway by the time Dem Threes depart the scene!).
And now a recap for your veterans and a peek for you rookies out there on the three primo western Montana rivers that we will (definitely now!) be fishing this year: (a) The Clark Fork of the Columbia River; (b) The Bitterroot River and (c) The Big (“A River Runs Through It”) Blackfoot River:
The Clark Fork of the Columbia river is now back in full force for this year’s Extravaganza, having been the subject over the last decade of the largest Superfund site in the country. For 110 years dammed at the mouth of the Blackfoot River just 8 miles east of Missoula, the Milltown Dam was removed almost a decade ago now resulting in major, expected temporary interference with fishing conditions on this majestic “big river” that now again is the home of huge rainbow trout. The removal of the dam caused understandably major disruption to the bed of this great river, resulting in a plethora of “fines” coming downstream after the dam was removed (in turn to remove thousands of cubic yards of arsenic-infested river soil the result of a century of upstream leach mining) which literally temporarily killed all of the plant life in the river resulting in a mass exodus of the resident rainbows. Well, time has now cured this interim disruption and, based on our own fishing experience last year and early 2015 fishing reports, the Clark Fork (errantly referred to some in the Tattoos after too much red wine as the “Black Fork”—not to mention names, Tattooer Brad “Maven” Miller!) has now come back on its own and I look forward to glowing after glowing boat reports on the bounty of this great river, which serves as the “freeway river” to the Blackfoot and Bitterroot Rivers as is course flows from east to west and eventually out to the Pacific Ocean just outside Portland, Oregon.
The second of our targeted rivers is the 52 mile long Bitterroot River whose roots are at Lolo Pass (over which Lewis and Clark almost met an unfateful end by leaving their Bitterroot River’s Travelers Rest after their second wintering overs) on the Idaho border from which its east and west forks flow unusually northward until their joining mid-journey into one yet-meandering rainbow, brown, cutthroat and cuttbow (a neuter cross between the bow and the cut) filled river from which, year after year, huge fish are netted by our crew and adorning our Twenty Inch Club Board (every twenty inch trout caught makes its way to that perpetually kept record board). I have fished this river dozens and dozens of times and simply never get tired of its quiet passage, gorgeous view of the adjoining Bitterroot mountain range. For many of the guides, this is not only their “go to” river but also their favorite.
The third of our bounty is my favorite river in the world, the Big Blackfoot River, about which Norman McLean wrote his fabled “A River Runs Through It” from which the fly fishing industry-standard movie was created by director Robert Redford and a then-young actor by the name of Brad Pitt. How many fabulous days I have spent over the last dozen years on this magnificent specimen of water, from which, year after year, Extravaganzers have caught (and quickly released) endangered bull trout many of whom have taped-out in the 30+” range (no kidding, folks) and many more of which have been seen engorging whole an 18” cutthroat live on the line of our anglers as they reel in what they earlier thought to be their huge catch. Flowing from the north towards its confluence with the Clark Fork, the 60+ mile long Big Blackfoot is the home of huge fish—huge browns, huge rainbows, huge cutthroats and even huger bull trout. This river, which, because of its shallow terrain and muddy banks is the last river to become fishable after the run off, should be available to us during each of our nine (count ‘em) days of E-15 fishing in the course of which we will put over one hundred boats on the water—making the Extravaganza the largest annual Montana organized fishing event. Treat yourself and take a peek at “A River Runs Through It” in either movie or written form and you will get a great glimpse of what you are in for…better yet, just go to our www.montanaextravaganza2015.blogspot.com blogsite and take a look at the 15 minute Extravaganza movie that we did in 2008 and see then rookie Jami Grassi hook and land a 31” Blackfoot river bull trout with the footnote that “this can happen to you this year…each of you!!”
So there you have it, gang, as I now slip into my final month’s preparation mode. We are in such good shape, by the way, that one week from today I will arrive in Patagonia, Chile for a week’s stay to begin the construction of Chile’s newest fishing lodge to be operated by my good friend Eduardo Barrueto (who will be on the scene of E-15, btw!) under his Magic Waters program, a lodge that starting in January 2016 will be hosting my newest (ad)venture: “Extravagonia”!!
Nope, never a dull moment in and around Extravaganzaland!!
Best to all on the approaching eve of it all,
Rock Creek Ron
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