Fish pics

Brown trout skin

Here's a short photo collection of some of my favorite shots from the last couple of months.

Juvenile arctic grayling

Bowl full of browns

Cutthroat hiding with grayling in foreground

Gigantic hatchery rainbow

Raceway cutts

Annual Meeting George Grant Chapter of Trout Unlimited tonight

George Grant TU's Annual Meeting

"The George Grant TU Chapter’s Annual Meeting will be held from 6:30 to 8 pm on May 9th in the Perkins Family Restaurant & Bakery Conference Room, 2900 Harrison Ave, Butte MT.

The meeting will include a presentation by Jim Olson, FWP Fisheries Biologist on How Fish See and a report on the Big Hole River followed by Dave McCumber, Montana Standard Editor, describe how an effective cleanup of Silver Bow Creek can be achieved.

The Board of Directors will give a general Chapter report, treasurer report and hold an election of GGTU board members. The following Trout Unlimited members have been nominated to serve on the GGTU board for three-year terms: Rich Day, Paul Olson, Steve Luebeck and Scott Reynolds. Other nominations will be accepted at the meeting." - GGTU

Hungarian Carp Soup

Hungarian Carp Soup.  Note: the head is usually not served, this was just for fun!

Oh yeah, that's what it looks like!  In Hungary, this is the shit.  My good friend and advisor make this soup on special occasions.  I'm looking forward to getting into some carp this year during the dog days of summer and you can bet that many of them will end up in the kettle.  The broth of this soup is especially wonderful.  It is fishy and salty and is a natural glutamate.  The Hungarian spices are spicy and similar to Cajun or Creole, kinda.

Carp are everywhere because they were historically stocked as a food source.  They get a bad reputation because they can survive in heavily polluted places and have the potential to be ecologically damaging as exotic invasive species.  Flyfishers have been catching targeting them for years because they are challenging and put up a serious fight.

The spawn is on

Rainbow trout spawn at Georgetown Lake

The rainbows and cutts are on the spawn all over Montana Right now.  One of the most fascinating places to watch this is at Georgetown Lake.  Here, thousands of large rainbows spawn on the east shore, in Emily Spring, and in the tributaries like Stewart Mill Creek.  There are so many trout that other animals key in, especially eagles.  If you want a local taste of what a salmon spawn in Alaska is like, head up to G-town and bring a camera!

Rainbow trout spawning swarm in Emily Spring

As of last week, there was still a lot of ice on the lake

Quiet on the blog means insane in real life...

I have been getting my ass kicked at work and in grad school for the past few months and my posts have suffered.  There have been a lot of great events in Butte and Western Montana that I've been able to post, but posting the fun stuff has taken a back seat to living out said "fun stuff."  I've been fishing a bunch but haven't had the time to write about it. In short, runoff has come early again, the Beaverhead is green again, the MO has been shot hot, I finished my first semester as the instructor of Montana Tech's first fish biology class, and I'm still making it happen in grad school.  Plus, there is a bunch of other boring news I won't bother you with.

Speaking of news, my shitty old drift boat trailer made in onto the local news tonight.  We all had a good laugh when the local anchorwoman knocked on the door to do a story about Butte's ordinance against parking trailers on the street for more than 48 hours.  My friend shot this photo of his TV tonight while the anchorwoman called the trailer (which is for sale) "a rusty old trailer."