I've been in Montana nearly 20 years, and I can't remember a winter storm quite this early.This includes the 7 years I lived in Coram (a.k.a. the land of perpetual winter) outside of West Glacier. We went from ninety degrees a couple of weeks ago to 2 inches of snow and temperatures in the twenties.
Yesterday's storm shut down the unprotected parts of the garden. The basil in the cold frame is gone, but some of it is still alive underneath the floating row cover in the greenhouse. The cabbage and other hardy ones are doing fine in the cold frame and greenhouse. Even though we had a nice burst of warm weather in September, I'm not ready to throw in the towel when it comes to the garden. We'll see how long I can push some of the cabbage and greens into the winter.
Grant wasn't thrilled about the change in weather, either. The first part of this week was the marking run in the annual rainbow trout population estimates on the Missouri River. The crews go out from sun down to sun up electrofishing. It's a few days of hard work each spring and fall, but Fish, Wildlife and Parks has been collecting this data for thirty years so it's an important project.
Electrofishing is an interesting technique. I've always been warned about mixing electricity and water, but for decades biologists used it to gather fish on a grand scale. In the simplest terms, they send a current through the water, and the fish caught inside the zone are practically immobilized. The biologists and unwitting volunteers (who often think it sounds more fun than it actually is) net them to bring them into the boat to measure, mark and weigh before releasing them back into the river. Two weeks from now they'll shock the same sections of river, and will count the number of marked fish they recapture. With this data Grant will calculate the population to make sure there aren't severe fluctuations that may flag a problem.
Although the electrofishing works wonderfully, it's not without its hazards. It is powerful enough to harm - such as burns or broken bones through extreme muscle contractions - or even kill fish making it important to have knowledgeable operators. The process isn't easy on the people doing it, either, particularly when it's cold and snowing... and anyone who's visited this area knows the wind can make thing miserable even in better conditions. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as the original forecast called for, and they marked over 1500 fish.
One of the nicest catches was this 30.5 inch/ 12.9 lbs. walleye caught in the electrical field. Grant said many times they can see these big boys beneath them, but they aren't often captured during these runs. It's pretty impressive to see what's out there, especially when they're as nice as this one.
