Missouri Hatches

I spent yesterday afternoon visiting my old friend Tom and his buddy
Pete. Tom is 68 and Pete 87. These two Ennis Montana old timers are
among the oldest (former) Montana fishing guides still kicking
around.
Tom and Pete told me stories about fishing the Missouri below Tosten
dam in the late 1960s, when mayfly hatches were so thick the surface
of the river looked like it had the whirlies.

Today, some 40 years later, the hatches there are nearly
non-existent. What's made the difference? Tom said he thinks it's
agricultural pesticides. The Missouri down near Wolf Creek still has
some
good hatches (although nothing like they used to be) but that water
comes out of a three dam, deep-water filtering system that dilutes
the
chemical concentrations. The Missouri in the Tosten area is still
shallow,
containing undiluted runoff from millions of acres of fields,
all sprayed regularly with an ever increasing diversity of noxious
chemicals.

Tom said he'd asked various Fish and Game biologists about his theory.
They all said "Sure, we think that too. But we have no baseline data
from 50 years ago, and therefore no way to prove the allegation."
Beurocrats (scientific or otherwise) learned long ago to keep thier
mouths shut, if they don't have strong evidence to back them up.

Still, as the old timers can tell you, the hatches are nothing like
they used to be.

On Feb 13, 1:42 pm, salmobytes wrote:

Tom and Pete told me stories about fishing the Missouri below Tosten
dam in the late 1960s, when mayfly hatches were so thick the surface
of the river looked like it had the whirlies.

....snipped a lot.
I also told them about the day Ron Scott and I guided a two boat
four customer party down that way--from Tosten to Deepdale, just
above Canyon Ferry Dam, in the early 1080s.
We had slow fishing most of the day, except where Turkey Creek
comes on the West Side of the river a few miles downstream
of Radersburg. And then it was slow again, almost all the way
to Deepdale, where (right at the takeout) one of my guys caught an
extra-nice rainbow about 22" long. Later that evening--after letting
out Michigan-based clients go--Ron and I had a beer at the White
Beaver
Bar in Tosten. I bought beers for everybody at the bar, which was
a bargain, because there was only one other guy besides me and Tom.
I bragged about my 22" fish. The bar tender put both elbows on the
counter,
right in front of me, looked me in the eyes and said: "son, we had
a 14 pound brown in here just last week."

The White Beaver Bar burned down a few years later. It was a great
place.
That bar tender had a pet, maybe 400 pound pig that liked to drink
beer
out of a zink-plated watering trough he had right in the middle of the
bar.
That pig sold him a lot of beer. Guys would drink a half a bottle
down and
then pour the rest into the trough, just to watch that pig, who
wiggled
his porcine but when ever there was beer to slop down.



Still, as the old timers can tell you, the hatches are nothing like
they used to be.

"salmobytes" wrote




Still, as the old timers can tell you,



I like old timer's stories G

"salmobytes" wrote in message
...
On Feb 13, 1:42 pm, salmobytes wrote:

Tom and Pete told me stories about fishing the Missouri below Tosten
dam in the late 1960s, when mayfly hatches were so thick the surface
of the river looked like it had the whirlies.

...snipped a lot.
I also told them about the day Ron Scott and I guided a two boat
four customer party down that way--from Tosten to Deepdale, just
above Canyon Ferry Dam, in the early 1080s.
We had slow fishing most of the day, except where Turkey Creek
comes on the West Side of the river a few miles downstream
of Radersburg. And then it was slow again, almost all the way
to Deepdale, where (right at the takeout) one of my guys caught an
extra-nice rainbow about 22" long. Later that evening--after letting
out Michigan-based clients go--Ron and I had a beer at the White
Beaver
Bar in Tosten. I bought beers for everybody at the bar, which was
a bargain, because there was only one other guy besides me and Tom.
I bragged about my 22" fish. The bar tender put both elbows on the
counter,
right in front of me, looked me in the eyes and said: "son, we had
a 14 pound brown in here just last week."

The White Beaver Bar burned down a few years later. It was a great
place.
That bar tender had a pet, maybe 400 pound pig that liked to drink
beer
out of a zink-plated watering trough he had right in the middle of the
bar.
That pig sold him a lot of beer. Guys would drink a half a bottle
down and
then pour the rest into the trough, just to watch that pig, who
wiggled
his porcine but when ever there was beer to slop down.

Still, as the old timers can tell you, the hatches are nothing like
they used to be.

Good one!
just the name alone made me laugh; "The White Beaver Bar"
love those bar stories,
-tom

On Feb 13, 6:11 pm, salmobytes wrote:

I also told them about the day Ron Scott and I guided a two boat
four customer party down that way--from Tosten to Deepdale, just
above Canyon Ferry Dam, in the early 1080s.

They were probably on vacation from the busy days of the Norman
Conquest...

Jon.

On Feb 14, 10:37 am, wrote:
They were probably on vacation from the busy days of the Norman
Conquest...

Jon.

Wading in those tin suits was a bitch.