Jake and I ran up to West Yellowstone this afternoon for some work on a video project we have in progress, and decided to run over and get a look at the Madison delta on Hebgen.  It looks more like spring conditions than September, though we did spot some very nice fish in the channel even though it was around 4 PM, 82, and bright sun.  The top pic is looking northwest from the delta toward the lake.  Things look pretty danged interesting.  Jake will throw some of the video up tonight if he has time. 

Mike over at the Madison River Fishing Company has come through again today with the goods on the dam – the flow spike that we talked about this morning was indeed some of the old logs coming out, and PPL apparently has two crews working 20 hours a day to get the news logs into place. 

We agree that with every passing day things get more critical; at these flow rates the lake will be at its typical March 1 low point in only 6 days (or less).  Obviously flows will need be maintained through the winter, and snow pack years like we had this year don’t come all that often.  Just out of curiosity – I just checked the NWS’s climatology forecasts, and we are forecast (for what it’s worth now) to be drier than normal starting in December – let’s hope they’re way off on that one – though they called our wet spring this past year pretty much right on the mark.  

Let’s hope for meaningfully reduced flow rates out of Hebgen by mid-day tomorrow. 

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