I always have to convince myself that the first gobbler I hear in the spring was really a gobbler. It wasn't a woodpecker hammering on a hickory, or a distant barking dog. It was a turkey. The mystique -- much bigger than the turkey -- engulfs the real-world science going on in the woods, and the mystique is in the gobble. It's magic. That thundering warble doesn't seem real. And it can't come from the throat of a bird, can it?

I drove along the South Fork of the Snake this past weekend on my way to do a quick repair to my daughter’s truck over in Grand Teton National Park, and the river is cruising. In fact, every creek and stream we drove over was bursting with full-on spring runoff.

A weekend of cold rain really got the snowmelt moving, and, while everything is green and glorious, the moving water in my stretch of the Rockies will make fishing a bit more challenging for at least a few more weeks.