January 4th 2024

Water temps below 36F. That’s cold. Fish don’t wanna move too far in those temps.

Flows are below 5K. 4840cfs. Quite normal for the winter months.

Wade anglers around. Mostly above Craig.

Boat anglers around. Mostly above Mid-Canon.

Catch rates better than winter averages. Snow rate lower than average as well.

Lots of stippers and swingers. Maybe outnumbering the Indi-crew.

Goldeneye’s are here in numbers. Shuttle Jimmy and SOL speaking about it today. When they arrive, winter is finally on its own doorstep. Historically. White late this winter season for the arrival of said bird.

Fewer Marsh Hawks and Rough Legged Hawks so far as well.

Cooler temps as we move through the weekend. Snow threatened. A skiff maybe.

Will winter arrive? The winter of ’19 had some parallels to the current campaign. That year winter did not arrive until late January. February and March brought us much greater that normal snowfalls and frigid air temps. Average high temp for February 2019 was -6F. The average high temp! 18′ of ice on the river at Mountain Palace. Significant sub surface structure changes with the gravel migration due to the icebergs!

Every winter is normal here. So many varieties in the Rockies. This year is no different.

What will happen? Just like the question from fishing guests “How is fishing gonna be today? My answer is this “I only know what happened yesterday. We won’t know how it was today, until tomorrow.”

And so it goes…