Amidst spitting snow, icy winds and intermittent sunshine, our Montana Matters Troubadour Shane Clouse and I spent Thursday fishing the Bitterroot River (see separate email with more fish pics!) and had a very productive 20+ fish day, the highlight of which was the landing of the first 20" fish of this season, as shown above with our sterling Double Up Outfitter holding a beauty of a twenty inch brown caught this past Thursday by yours truly. Over the years, we have set this length of fish as our "gold standard" for a truly great specimen of our Montana fisheries and, in fact (as you wiley veterans well know) have created a coveted Twenty Inch Club where, during each Extravaganza, those that catch (and release!) a twenty inch or longer trout are anointed into this august group and sign up on our annual Twenty Inch Club Board, which boards are retained here at Headquarters and are available for your perusal upon your arrival.
Having sponsored now sixteen Extravaganzas, we have a pretty good handle on just how many entrants there will be in each years Club. Year after year the odds on average is that about one in a hundred trout that we land will be qualify for The Club. That is, while we purposely do not keep an accurate fish count, on average, each Extravaganza, depending upon local fishing conditions, will see between 1,500 and 2,000 trout visit our fishing nets and our annual Twenty Inch Club signup ranges from 13 to 17 entrants--again, about one per every hundred landed trout. As such, joining our Twenty Inch Club is, indeed, a very big deal and I am honored this year to provide proof-positive that such large natural trout do, indeed, populate our local waters--no hatchery fish being allowed in these here parts!
Omens continue to remain aggressively positive for our E-19 fishing, gang, as witnessed by now two very enjoyable productive days on 2019 waters!!
Best to all at the early stages of it all,
Rock Creek Ron
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