Outdoor Roundup a bust this week

As I opened up the Bozeman Daily Comical this week to see the new featured outdoor writer it was obvious that this week would continue on the downward spiral that the first half of the week has been. I am not sure if it was Dave's decision to slow down on the articles for the paper or the papers decision but either way I was not as excited to look at the outdoors section of the paper knowing that Dave was not going to be writing and that the dreaded Parker would have the headline. As I expected Parker wrote and article complaining about how people wear their hats and that his reasons for wearing a hat were the only one that mattered. I don't know how much more time I will spend reading the Comical's outdoor section if the rants and prejudices of Parker's continue to grace the headlines.

After reading through the Comical I set out to check on other papers from around the area. The only paper that had a fishing article was the Billings Gazette and the Denver Post. The Gazette article was about the ongoing controversy between Montana and Wyoming over water in Yellowtail Reservoir. The fight has been on because Montana wants in stream flows for the valuable fishery on the Bighorn River and Wyoming wants the water left in the lake so that the boat ramp at the upper end of the lake can be used. The only problem with Wyoming's claim is that even when the lake is at full pool there is still no one there to use the ramps, except for a few folks from Montana. At least the tone of the article was about the controversy probably being solved for the time being by mother nature who has put copious amounts of water in the mountains that will make it's way to the lake this year and keep both sides happy.

The Denver Post article was about a broken pipe at Spinney Mountain Reservoir and how it was going to affect the spawning of Rainbows and Cutthroats in the Dream Stream this year. A broken pipe that takes water to the city of Aurora is preventing them from releasing water from the reservoir and the flow will be low, even with a lot of snow pack in the mountains. A couple of anglers were quoted and they were disappointed they would have fewer spawners to harass with the lower flows. One guy was even quoted as saying he was disappointed he might not get to relive his epic day last year when he caught 7 trout over ten pounds, most of which were probably spawners from Elevenmile Reservoir. It's too bad that the pipe isn't broken every year so that these guys leave the spawners alone. I really feel for poor Landon Mayer, he will have to find another place to harass spawners for his hero shot's on next years magazine covers.

Speaking of Landon, I was thumbing through the newest issue of Fly Fisherman and he was on the cover holding a huge cutthroat from the Dream Stream. I looked at the inside cover to see the info on the shot and to make sure it was the Dream Stream. I did find the caption interesting due to the fact that the photo was taken of Landon and he also took credit for taking the picture as well. I am not sure how one accomplishes this feat, but I guess you could set up the camera on a tripod, guess on the focus and framing of the shot and then snap the photo with a remote for the shutter. I don't get this guy and his need to become famous.