4-4 SS Runoff

 Our genius correspondent, Josh Mills, tells us today that we need to get fishing before the flood comes. “There is a really fun time to get on the rivers before the runoff happens. It is an important time where fish start to get really active  before the big snowmelt comes which traditionally is in late April, May and June. it is a great time to throw streamers for trout and get the 1st dry fly action of the year. One thing you want to do is take a look at the US geological survey graphs that you can find on the Internet and shall historical data on each river. You can see what the normal flow for that river is and beyond that you want no what the maximum and the minimums are. You want to see which way the graph is headed. As long as you have overnight temperatures that are not well above freezing in the 40s and 50s and are still staying in the 30s to 40s range, and you are fishing water that comes out of mountains, typically you are not going to get a lot of runoff and the river is stabilized up until, let’s say, the 1st part of May usually, there can be some lights out fishing. Even during that time you can look to the tail waters, which are dam controlled flows that can provide consistent fishing while the runoff rages until the freestone, meaning rivers that are not dam regulated are ready to go for summer fishing.