Why wait until hoot-owl?

Last week, water temps in the upper Bitterroot crept into the low and mid-60s and the East Fork and West Fork held in that range. Insect hatches are abundant at those temperatures, trout of all species feed actively, the angler can have a great day and all can appear to be well.

But that was last week. This week and for the foreseeable future, day temps in the 90s will push water temperatures skyward by mid-day. As I write, hoot-owl restrictions, no fishing from 2 p.m. until 10 p.m., have been announced for several western Montana rivers.

Just as heavy exercise on a warm day can produce heat exhaustion, heat stroke and even death in a human being, exhaustive stress from hooking, playing, landing and improper release of a trout when water temperatures are near its stress threshold can kill it.

That's why hoot-owl regulations are now in force on some rivers with more to come. Please check before you go out, or better yet, don't wait for hoot-owl.

"A lot of the guides on the Blackfoot have started doing hoot-owl on their own," Travis Thurmond of Blackfoot Anglers in Ovando tells me.

The best fishing may start at dawn. The nymphs that make a mayfly hatch later will be coming off the bottom and fish will be feeding on them.

Start then, and you should have several nice fish to the net before there's much dry fly activity. Fish until the hatch trails off, maybe 11 a.m. or so.

Don't wait for hoot-owl to kick in before you quit. Catching lethargic fish really isn't that much fun, and not something to feel terrifically proud of. Ever watched a released trout die after you caught it? I have. It's a sickening feeling that I don't want to repeat.

I've written much in the past about catch and release methods. The phrase should be: catch, revive and release - emphasis on the word revive.

For those who missed it, here's the recap: Fish barbless hooks or pinch the barb down before fishing. Play fish promptly. Unhook quickly. If the fish is small, you can scoot 'em in quickly and get 'em off just as quick. For the trout large enough to put up any kind of a fight, keep 'em wet; if you want a photo, forgo the "hero shot" with your trout held out toward the camera. Opt for the more dramatic underwater shot, and revive the fish fully before release.

To revive a trout, face the fish upstream in gentle current, cradle it in one hand behind the pectoral fins, and grasp the narrow area above the tail firmly with the other. Let the fish swim off when the dorsal fin has regained its turgor. That may take just seconds or several minutes. Do what it takes.

Bait-and-release fishing - even where regulations permit it - doesn't work too well. Fish tend to swallow bait, either that or the barbed hooks commonly used for bait fishing tend to defy quick unhooking. The resultant time-out-of-water and mishandling kills fish.

What to do in the afternoon? Fish where the water is cooler and where the fish aren't being pestered to death (literally) by the crowds. Excessive angling pressure takes a long-term toll on fishery resources. I'd rather fish somewhere else, someplace where I can still feel a sense of that wild solitude that first drew me to trout fishing with a fly. I don't get that sense, that wild feeling, where there's an overload of traffic that I sense, deep-down, isn't good for the resource. I'd rather fish a cool, small mountain stream.

"It's just as well that the whole Blackfoot is on hoot-owl," Travis tells me. "The gauging station thermometer downstream at Bonner shows warmer than what we see upstream around Ovando."

Travis' reasoning is that the upper Blackfoot would be overrun by traffic pushed up from the hoot-owl stretch downstream if the whole river were not on hoot-owl.

In that case the hoot-owl regulation would have the opposite of its intended effect: preserving the resource. Trout in the already heavily-fished upper reaches would be subject to undue fishing pressure and its effects, including higher trout mortality.

What to do if you visit the Blackfoot? Fish in the morning, and for the afternoon Travis suggests, "Hit some small streams - fish where the other guy ain't!" To dial it in tighter, check with Travis or Kathy at their Blackfoot Angler shop in Ovando.