Winter continues to tighten its grip on the MO’.
We’re currently sitting at -1 with snow on the way tonight and tomorrow and looking at the 10 day it doesn’t appear as though we’re going to make it above freezing anytime soon.
We’ll see a slight warming trend this weekend as temps reach into the high 20’s on Saturday and Sunday but the bottom drops out again on Monday with a return to single (and negative) digits and more snow on the way for next week.
Once again, we’re happy to have it. We’re building snowpack and hopefully we’re on our way to an awesome 2017 water year.
Current SNOTEL snow water equivalent (SWE) shows we are well below average at this point but not to worry, we’re just getting started and these numbers will all change over the next weeks as snowfall continues to accumulate, especially in the high country.
Current “Most Probable” projections look good for the 2017 water year on the Missouri with a nice steady 4000 cfs through the winter months and a peak of around 8,000 in June followed by low 4’s for the remainder of the season. Max probable shows something closer to 5K for the winter with a peak near 12K and evening out around 6K for the remainder of the season while Minimum Probable essentially mirrors what we saw in 2016 with steady flows at 3500 – 4000 cfs and no real peak to speak of in the spring. Fingers are crossed for Max Probable!
So how does all of this affect your 2017 fishing plans? Hard to say for sure but the long and short of it is that at this point is shouldn’t really have any bearing on your plans. Sure if you are a wade angler you might want to think about not coming in early June when we generally see our peak flows but we’ve got a long winter ahead of us and nobody knows for sure what that winter is going to hold in store for us. We say it every year, there will be water. How much or how little we don’t know but what we do know is that regardless of whether we see minimum or maximum or most probable flows (or none of the above for that matter) we will be fishing and we hope you will be here fishing with us.
As all of you who regularly fish the Missouri know, we are somewhat isolated from the challenges of extreme high and low flows. Regulated flows keep us fishing all year long while other waters around the state are unfishable due to high water (runoff) in the spring and low flows/high water temps resulting in Hoot Owl Closures in the summer as we’ve seen each year during the current drought conditions.
That’s not to say it can’t happen here. If we end up getting an above average amount of snowpack coupled with a wet spring then we’re obviously going to have an above average amount of water to contend with. It has to go somewhere! And while the folks in charge of managing the water do a pretty good job (and a thankless one at that) of regulating the reservoirs, if drought conditions persist and we don’t get adequate precipitation then even the Missouri will suffer from low flows and increased water temps. I’ve yet to see Hoot Owl hit the MO’ but it’s not out of the question.
All that being said, we’re looking forward to another spectacular season on the Missouri and while our fishing has been shut down by the weather for the time being we’ll gladly sacrifice December nymphing for more water in the spring. In the meantime stay inside, keep warm and think happy thoughts about summer days on the MO’…we are.
Summer Days on the Missouri
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