FALL IN THE MADISON VALLEY

Trout live in nice neighborhoods.
ENNIS AND MADISON VALLEY “HAPPENINGS” → The big news this month is the reopening of the local meat market.  Locals and visitors alike were puzzled and disappointed when one of the most popular stores in Ennis closed its doors in April.  After 4 generations in the butchering business, the Restvedt family stepped aside and another local butcher, Chris DiMichele has taken over.  Chris has been butchering in this valley for about 18 years and had always wanted to open his own butcher shop.  He finally got his wish with Deemo’s Meats.  Once again, hunters have a place to have their game processed and former customers of Restvedt’s Meats can find quality meat products.  Don Bowen of Arrow Real Estate was instrumental in brokering this complicated transaction and insuring that all parties were well  represented. → Helping local businesses prosper during the recent economic challenges is a major goal of leaders in this community.  The Ennis Chamber of Commerce is promoting a grassroots program called the Buy Local Campaign, to support local businesses. → Moonlight Basin’s  12,800 SF office building in Ennis is officially for sale at $899,000.  It is a magnificient building that reflects the high quality and glamour of the exciting Big Sky Resort. → Migration is in full swing on Ennis Lake with several thousands of waterfowl taking a break from their travels south.  There is a great story in The Madisonian that states, “with a good pair of binoculars, you can see coots, Canadian geese, ruddy ducks, redheads, scaup, mergansers, buffleheads, golden eyes, mallards, common loons, various kinds of grebes, widgeons and gadwalls. And that’s just at the lake.”  Read more about it at www.madisoniannews.com. → Virginia City and Nevada City will play host to a national convention of living history and museum experts in 2013. The Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums will hold their conference in these historic Montana communities for the first time ever, said Dan Thyer, living history curator at Nevada City.  The ALHFAM is the main sanctioning body for living history museums, like Nevada City.  Their willingness to come to Madison County speaks volumes for the importance of the cultural resources found in both Nevada and Virginia Cities. 

MADISON COUNTY→ MADISON RIVER → The biggest news in the county is that after more than a year of hearings, the county commissioners voted against the Streamside Setback Regulations!  The Madisonian reported that “The commissioners instead chose unanimously to use the planning board’s proposal as voluntary guidelines for landowners along the Madison River wishing to build on their property.  The decision comes after a drawn out process that started nearly four years ago, when the commissioners decided to initiate a streamside setback citizen advisory committee to look into the issue of setbacks along the Madison and Jefferson River and its tributaries.  The goal was to address land that didn’t fall under the scope of the subdivision regulations, which called for a 500-foot setback on the Madison River.  This citizen committee met for nearly two years on the topic and ultimately couldn’t reach a complete consensus on the issue. However they recommended a regulation to the Madison County Planning Board of a minimum of 75-foot setbacks on the Madison and Jefferson River and 50-foot setbacks on the tributaries.  The Madison County Planning Board took the recommendation, and dropped the Jefferson River from the regulation and increased the building setbacks to 300 feet. This included a 500-foot jurisdictional area and 150-foot streamside buffer zone.  Ultimately, the final decision rested with the county commissioners, who chose to take neither recommendation for a setback regulation, but rather go with voluntary guidelines, expressing deep concerns about infringement of private property rights.”  You can read more about the issue at www.madisoniannews.com.  It is unfortunate that they “threw the baby out with the bath” and we are left with no setbacks.  Most people seemed to accept the idea of the recommended 75’ setback but resisted the Planning Board’s 500’ and 300’ proposals.  If the Planning Board had implemented the regulation as proposed by the committee, there would probably be reasonable setbacks in place now.   Live and learn.

 NOVEMBER EVENTS → The Madison Valley Woman’s Club Annual Holiday Bazaar  will be held in the new Ennis Elementary School gym from 9 AM to 3 PM on Saturday,  November 26.  This is a very popular event that everyone looks forward to over the Thanksgiving weekend.  The gym is filled with local crafters offering an abundance of gift items for the holidays. → And since the November newsletter wouldn’t be out in time to plan for it, mark your calendars for the annual Spirit of Christmas 2011–Ennis Stroll through downtown Ennis on Friday, December 2^nd from 3Pm to 8 PM.  Merchants will be open late, featuring Christmas treats for all!  Pictures with Santa, Christmas stories for children, roasted chestnuts, live music, special gallery events and much more! The Lions Club Park by the Madison River will be lit for the holiday season. Something for the whole family! Make a festive, fun night of it with local hotels and restaurants, see a movie in our quaint downtown theatre, and visit our neighbors in historic Virginia City for their Christmas Socials. Please call the Ennis Chamber of Commerce @ 406-682-4388 or visit the Chamber website: www.ennischamber.com for more information.

MONTANA in the NEWS  → If you love beautiful old barns, you might be interested in a new book just published by the Montana Historical Society Press entitled, “Hand Raised: The Barns of Montana.”  It is a tribute to the farmers and ranchers who helped build this state.  Read about this new publication at, http://governor.mt.gov/news/pr.asp?ID=974.

HUNTING REPORT → The Montana State Legislature passed a new law—effective July 1, 2011—that establishes a preference point system to distribute "Class B-10" nonresident big game combination licenses and "Class B-11" nonresident deer combination licenses.  In a preference point system, licenses are awarded to those applicants who hold the greatest number of preference points.  Go to http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/licenses/nonresidentCombo.html#preferencePoints to get the details.  And once you get your animal, the new meat market is processing game and they are doing a booming business, already! 

FISHING REPORT →  The Madison River Fishing Company reports as of October 26th, “It’s getting to the point where you’d better either be really well dressed for the weather or pick your days very wisely if you’re going to fish. It’s not been really “casual” fishing weather lately.  It is, after all, almost November.  Daytime air temperatures haven’t been extreme yet but it’s been into the low 20s at night which makes early arrivals to the river kind of pointless. You’ll want layers too…probably lots of them.  It’ll be cold out there even if you get here at 10. Once you get acclimated you’ll be fine….maybe after and hour or two depending on the wind. Based on the current forecast it looks like the next several days may be about as pleasant as we’ll see for the next few months; they’re calling for highs in the mid 40s to low 50s with fairly light wind. Don’t let that fool you though…even with a 5 mph breeze it can feel 10 degrees cooler. Not much in the way of precipitation called for at the moment. It’s looking like it’ll be bright and cold…not particularly conducive to really good fall fishing. We much prefer at least some cloud cover.  Deep nymphing will likely be your best bet here until we get some weather back in. I’d probably throw a small Girdle Bug with a pheasant Tail or other mayflyish type bead head as a dropper. Of course there’s always the egg option. They’ve been eating those pretty well here for the past week or two. Some guys trail them behind Zonkers, others fish ‘em with another small nymph and still others run ‘em, two at a time. No matter how you do it, make sure they’re bouncing on the bottom, preferably slowly. This pretty much goes for anything you’re throwing right now in the bright sun. Once we get some clouds here again, we should be right in the thick of things streamer-wise. The browns are definitely fired up and looking for a fight. For whatever reason they much prefer to duke it out under cover of gray. I’m guessing we’ll see some of that before too long.”

…check out additional fishing reports at:

      Kelly Galloup’s Slide Inn at:

        http://www.slideinn.com/blog/category/fishing-report/.

      Dan Delekta’s report at http://beartoothflyfishing.com/flyfishingreports/uppermadisonriver.htm.

      The Tackle Shop’s Orvis report at http://www.orvis.com/fishing_report.aspx?locationid=5974

      The Madison Valley Ranch at http://www.madisonvalleyranch.com/blog/

      Joe Dilschneider’s Montana Trout Stalkers at http://www.montanatrout.com/

      Madison River Fishing Company at:

        http://www.mrfc.com/MadisonRiverMontanaFishing/MadisonRiverReport.aspx.

WEATHER→ Wild extremes this month.  Our Geraniums gave up last week (after the deer munched on them!)  and the valley is ringed with snow-capped mountains.  The weather is a little too mild for the hunters as they have to work harder to find animals holding higher up in the mountains.  The statistics show the October temperatures in Ennis as:  a high of 83° and a low of 14°, with an average high of 58° and an average low of 34°.   The average wind speed this month was just 9 mph!  Our recorded October precipitation totaled .25” which includes that white stuff. 

LOCAL REAL ESTATE MARKET STATISTICS → Arrow Real Estate has been extremely busy this month, with 3 closings and two more pending transactions.  With all the showings, it could be January before we slow down and catch up!  The Southwest Montana Multiple Listing statistics for the Madison Valley (including Ennis, Cameron, McAllister, Norris, Virginia City, Harrison, Pony, Whitehall and Cardwell), for the month of  September  2011, are as follows:

·        LAND:  324 vacant lots listed ($8,400 - $2,490,000),  7 pending sales ($30,000 - $250,000), 21 lots sold, year-to-date ($1,000 - $252,500). 

·        HOMES:  151 homes listed ($84,900 - $3,250,000), 11 pending sales ($67,500 - $1,950,000),  37 homes sold, year-to-date ($50,000 - $950,000).  

·        RANCHES:  8 listed ($849,000 - $9,950,000),  0 pending sales,  2 ranches sold,  year-to-date ($925,000 - $7,215,794). 

YOU KNOW YOU’RE FROM MONTANA WHEN…you can see the stars at night!

MONTANA TRIVIA → Did you know that Montana holds the world record for the greatest temperature change in 24 hours?  On January 14-15, 1972, in Loma, the temperature went from minus 45°F to plus 49°F, a whopping 103 degree change!

COME VISIT!  Toni Bowen, ABR, Arrow Real Estate, Ennis MT  (406) 682-4290, arrow@3rivers.net, www.arrowreal.com