The Boogieman Has Arrived

The 'Boogieman' has arrived and apparently he is the cantankerous bastard son of Mother Nature and the Owyhee Irrigation District. The truth of the matter is, I'm as irritated as anyone regarding the current situation on the Owyhee. Quite frankly, I'm not concerned about the health of the river -- it's going to be fine (just as it's always been). I'm just bored and slightly melancholic about the overall fishing scene -- which brings me to my next point: Doom and gloom.

Could the Owyhee 'disaster' have been foreseen and/or averted? You bet. Mathematical formulas do work -- especially when we have solid variables like snow pack percentage and historical data related to eventual temperature increases! Does the People's Republic of Oregon consider recreation and licensing revenue when making these decisions? Probably not. Unfortunately, it's the reality of the situation and no amount of 'shoulda-coulda-woulda' will change what IS.

I understand the melancholy, the grief, the boredom. I get all of that (and feel some of it myself). What I don't get is the knee-jerk apocalyptic tendencies of some people -- especially those with newsletter audiences and those preaching in the intellectual melting pot that is the fly fishing blogosphere.

What the hell has happened to us these past 10 years? Are we really that distracted, fickle and dependent on doodads and nicknacks? Do we not have five senses? For shit sakes, we live in a society where people need a beer can to turn blue to tell them the interior contents are 'cold enough to drink'.

Is there an app for that? How about an RSS feed? Is it possible for a person to assess a situation and form a hypothesis without direct and absolute reliance upon gadgets and up-to-the-second scrolling social media tickers?

I don't know why, but (collectively) we always seem to assume the worst when things go south. Why actually reason through or think about a process when we have others to tell us what to think? We write off history (and history's data), ignore facts, and go straight to doom and gloom.

Yeah, the general fishing situation sucks…but eventually it won't. The events of this spring are not devastating, catastrophic or disastrous. Fish and bug numbers are not irreversibly decimated. Yes, there's always going to be a significant fish kill and insect flush when rivers flood, but we're not doomed for decades to come.

I'll be the first to admit, in 2006 I was a damn mess. Like others, I made the post-flood trip to view the carnage and was certain the river was dead. The vegetation on the banks was ripped out, channels were gutted, dead fish hung from the trees like Christmas ornaments, and the river smelled like Haiti. Then something happened. A fish dimpled the surface…and at that point I relaxed a little.

In 2006, fishing wasn't what 2005 had been. The river fished, but it wasn't that aesthetically pleasing 'green-oasis-on-the-surface-of-Mars-bug-factory' trout stream we're all accustomed to seeing.

That said, we're probably looking at a similar scenario for 2011. It won't fish like it did in 2010, but it will fish. And, just as things improved drastically from 2006 to 2007, I'd just about bet we'll see a repeat scenario from 2011 to 2012. I don't know for certain, but I'd bet my collection of wooden nickels and hen teeth on it.

The sun will shine again. Flows will drop. Bugs will hatch and fish will rise. The pendulum swings in one direction and eventually returns in the other. Everything will work out. It's just a matter of time. Is time really the big ugly monster we can't handle?

For those perpetual doom and gloomers, here's a little chart I pulled from the 2006 and 2011 water data stats (click to enlarge). We're probably going to be in rough fishing shape for a couple of months but we're not even close to what happened the last time the sky fell. In the mean time, crack a (non-idiot label) beer, relax and watch a baseball game.