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3. Plan could eliminate Harriman State Park

FYI, I truly hope this doesn't happen! This is one of the most awesome dry fly trout waters and people come from all over the World to fish it!

http://www.islandparknews.com/atf.php?sid=7670¤t_edition=2010-01-07

John,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I have no knowledge of the contract that set up the park, but maybe something along the lines of what was done a few years back at the $3 Dollar Bridge on the Madison could be worked out. Anything would be preferable to the prospect of development in such a jewel of our sport.

I was there in 2004 just before Labor Day. The river was fishing poorly that year due to the water issues always going on there between the ranchers and just about everyone else. I was actually forewarned when I was purchasing a fishing license there and they directed me to some other areas that may fish better if things didn't work out at the Ranch...

I spent two days there and on the second day I witnessed one of the largest hatches I have ever seen. It was over cast and the wind was not blowing very hard for a change and the river looked more like a still lake early in the morning. It was like a mirror all across from bank to bank...There were several different bugs coming off and it looked like mother nature had sprinkled pepper all across the still surface...It was like the stars in the sky, the numbers were mind boggling! Hardly a fish fed!

They say that when the water warms up the big boys move to cooler areas of the river, but I was glad to have seen it. I was staying in West Yellowstone and got up very early and stopped at a sandwich shop there and they made me a box lunch...I ran in to some local guides in there getting ready for the day's float...Everyone I spoke with just shook their heads about the fishing at the Ranch that year...One of the guys at Blue Ribbon Flies explained the water rights hassle out there and it's effects on the fishing.

For us anglers it is, for the most part, about the fishing, but over the years I have enjoyed some wonderful lunches in some beautiful places and the Ranch was certainly near the top. Taking some time to look up from the phenomenal fishing out there can really settle a man down. We (I) need these places...

Mankind is always talking about "manageing the resource" when the bottom line is more like they simply fail at manageing just about everything. Contracts and paper documents like the constitution are only good if they are adhered to. Time and time again, when the pressures from mis-management become apparent, we simply set these documents aside and ignore them until things are sunny again...

Oh well...I'm about to start ranting here...

On a positive note, I feel blessed to have had a chance in my life to have made it out there. Considering how hell-bent we humans seem to be in mucking up this place we live in...it is truely, to me, "The Last Best Place" as they used to say. I've had my quiet lunches on the Madison, at the Third Meadow of Slough Creek, at different times at DePuy's, Armstrong's, and Nelson's Spring Creeks, on the banks ot the Lamar, and the Gallatin in the Park,and the wonderful Henry's Fork at the Harriman Ranch. These are great places boys and we need to keep our eyes on prize!

Thanks again, John! Sorry about the diatribe...

Spence

Spence, you are a long-winded one. Fortunately, you write well!

Jonathon

Jon,

That's the basic problem with the blog-o-sphere, eh...No editors.

My first wife had been the editor of her high school paper and when we were married went to the same university I attended and was working on a journalism major. When we were dating we would retire to her parents basement, her dad had an office down there, and she would get out a red pencil and re-work my papers for class. To distract myself from this painful exercise I would retire to another room in the basement and listen to her fathers jazz collection. She would emerge from the back room with all kinds of weird editor symbols all over my paper... Maybe we should give her a call and see if she's still good with a red pencil...

There is no one, save Jason's "invisable-hand", to monitor us blabberers...An old angling friend of mine likes to call me "Mr. Lore" and has told me that all this history floating around in my head doesn't make me a better angler...Hey! To each their own...I poke my share of trout. I used to follow him down the stream and when I would catch a nice fish behind him I'd hold it up and yell, "Hey smartass...You missed one!"

Spence

every time Congress messes with the U. S. Park Service budget to the point where it just won't work, the Park Service closes the Washington Monument "due to budget constraints". it's a wonderful attention-getter, and in the end sanity prevails, the Monument is opened, and most folks go about their business happy.

in this age of terrible state budget problems, it's not surprising that a governor who is not afraid to take an unpopular position would "close" the Henry's Fork.

write your Congressman, write the governor, and pray. sooner or later something will be worked out. why? because rich as well as ordinary people play there...