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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 1, 2019 20:33:36 GMT -6
New year. New thread.
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 1, 2019 21:07:39 GMT -6
I arrived at the river today at 1pm. It was the best I could do because yesterday was a travel day that went well into the night. I was coming home from a great Christmas vacation though.
When I got to the water in the Watts Red Zone, I noted that I was wearing too many clothes for a fully-overcast 30 degree day but it was most likely due to a very light north wind. I also noticed that I had the entire Red Zone to myself. Looking around I could see quite a few fish rising but it wasn’t really a feeding frenzy so I started with a nymph. I chose a really cool looking Green and UV Violet Perdigon size 14. But it didn’t produce much action - maybe 1 slight bump in 10 casts. With all the surface movement that just seemed wrong so switched to my go-to fly - a Mohawk Pheasant Tail size 16. And it produced - 2 fish in the first 2 casts and 4 in the first 6. That’s more like it!
I moved around to several different spots further downstream with similar success. I probably netted 18 with just a few missed hook sets and LDRs. By that time, my fly was pretty chewed up - the peacock herl was gone and the thread was starting to unravel. My tippet must have also been weakened because it snapped on the next hook set. Oh well. Time to tie up some more!
My next fly to try was an Evil Olive size 16. It’s a fly I tied a month or so ago but had never fished. And it produced as well - 2 fish in the first 2 casts and about 8 in 15 or so casts. At this point I debated on whether to go further downstream or start heading back up. I chose the latter and worked the Evil Olive up in the places I had fished the Mohawk earlier. I had a few more bites by some really hard-fighting rainbows. Pretty cool. And then my casting turned funky. I couldn’t shoot out any line. My rod guides had iced up. The temperature had dropped a little and the wind had picked up a little. Made me glad I had overdressed!
And minutes later, the horn went off indicating that hydroelectric power generation was beginning shortly so I reeled in and headed for the car. Never came across another fisherman on the way back either. A great way to start off 2019.
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 5, 2019 19:56:39 GMT -6
It was good while it lasted (3 whole days) but the Lower Illinois is now unavailable for fly fishing for the next several weeks. Yesterday, they opened the flood gates to lower the lake level out of the Flood Pool. The recent rains had pushed the level up to about 18% full in that pool. The current flow rate is about 4000 cfs which is, of course, unsafe to wade into.
From my perspective, this was very avoidable. We’ve had a pretty wet fall and winter thus far so the lake should have been drawn down to make room for spring rains but that was not done. The Conservation Pool was left at 90+% full during that whole time. The off-generation flows were also routinely pinched down to 25 cfs, far below what I’d like to see as the minimum flow rate for this river. So now, fly fishing pays the price with flows at 160x that. So much for “saving” all that water.
Oh well, at least I can still sit on a bucket along the river and fling pink powerbait. Yee ha!
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Post by danimal on Jan 5, 2019 22:10:04 GMT -6
Yo Darrell!! If you're really bent on going you can go drive on up towards the dam and turn right into the first gravel parking lot then walk downstream just a little ways and you'll see a large back eddy on river right. You can carefully wade in the back eddy but stay near the bank. A group of guys have fished there the last couple of days and done pretty well. One guy said he caught upwards of 40 fish. I guess the downside would be not having any room to fish if there are people already there and there are no other spots on the river to fish that could be accessed on foot at these levels.
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Post by flyfishermann1955 on Jan 6, 2019 6:32:42 GMT -6
I appreciate the update. I was hoping for a mid-week trip to fish some soft hackle flies, so you just saved me some gas money, time, and frustration! As mentioned above, the Illinois River badly needs a "minimum flow" to support trout health. Unfortunately, "fishing" isn't considered in the decision process for when to release or not release water. I know there are people working to make this happen and improve fishing conditions. Perhaps it will actually happen in my life time.
I will check on current conditions at the Blue River,
Tight Lines- Ken
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 17, 2019 7:13:30 GMT -6
Last week the flow rate on the Lower Illinois was bumped to 4000 cfs. Now this week it’s 6000 cfs. That’s a lot of water being “wasted”! Enough water that the minimum flow rate could have been raised by 60 cfs for the past year and we’d still be in the flood pool right now. Bummer.
At least progress is being made though, as the flood pool is down to 15% full.
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 19, 2019 23:44:03 GMT -6
This week the flow rate out of Lake Tenkiller was raised to 8000 cfs but just for a few days. Now it’s back to 4000 cfs. Even with all these releases, a 1/2-inch rain in the area last week actually raised the lake level slightly. At this pace, it could be early summer before the lake is out of the flood stage. That should be just in time to drop the flow rate into the river back to 25 cfs and kill all the remaining trout due to high daytime water temperatures and low dissolved oxygen levels.
I’m usually not this negative but it’s pretty frustrating.
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Post by flyfishermann1955 on Jan 20, 2019 6:01:15 GMT -6
Do you have a source, other than the Southwest Power web site (https://www.swpa.gov/), where you check for water release?
Thanks- Ken
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 20, 2019 8:29:17 GMT -6
Do you have a source, other than the Southwest Power web site (https://www.swpa.gov/), where you check for water release? Thanks- Ken The SWPA website is the only place I know of that lists the proposed generation schedule. Otherwise, I use these information sites. For the daily release data and water quality info I go here. This gives a great view of the conditions over the past week although you can easily change it to show more or less days. waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?site_no=07198000For the status of the flood control gates I go here. This page was changed lately; the values look right but where they show up on the graphic needs some work. It also has data on water storage at the different "pool" stages. www.swt-wc.usace.army.mil/TENK.lakepage.htmlFor the yearly graphs of the lake level I go here. The first link goes to a top-level page with a link for each lake in Oklahoma. The second link goes straight to the Lake Tenkiller page. www.lakelevels.info/USA/Oklahoma/tenkillerferry.uslakes.info/Level/
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Post by dainw on Jan 20, 2019 11:50:11 GMT -6
Only about 5 ft above pool now and not a ton of rain in the forecast for the next ten days. Once they shut the gates off get your white woolly buggers ready bc there’s usually a good shad kill after extended generation during cold weather.
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Post by danimal on Jan 20, 2019 18:35:13 GMT -6
Still might take a while. The river at Talequaw (sp?) is still flowing at just over 4000 cfs with Barren Fork sitting just over 700. Throw in any smaller tributaries flowing into the lake and we're still looking at over 5000 cfs of inflow. That'll get a bump on Tuesday then it looks pretty clear. I'm hoping they'll bump the outflow back up to at least 6000 and try to get it on down quickly. We shall see.
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Post by danimal on Jan 20, 2019 18:44:45 GMT -6
Only about 5 ft above pool now and not a ton of rain in the forecast for the next ten days. Once they shut the gates off get your white woolly buggers ready bc there’s usually a good shad kill after extended generation during cold weather. Amazing how quickly those trout can fatten up when they get a shad buffet coming through the turbines. Doesn't happen that often on Tenkiller, but when it does some of them start looking deformed after about a week. LOL
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 20, 2019 19:13:47 GMT -6
Still might take a while. The river at Talequaw (sp?) is still flowing at just over 4000 cfs with Barren Fork sitting just over 700. Throw in any smaller tributaries flowing into the lake and we're still looking at over 5000 cfs of inflow. That'll get a bump on Tuesday then it looks pretty clear. I'm hoping they'll bump the outflow back up to at least 6000 and try to get it on down quickly. We shall see. On the Corp of Engineers flood control page (2nd link I listed), it is currently showing showing 6410 cfs incoming to the lake. You’re right, that’s a lot more than the 4000 cfs they are releasing. So how do you know how much is going through the turbines? With 2 gates open 1.5 ft, isn’t most of the water just dumping over there and into the river?
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Post by danimal on Jan 20, 2019 20:16:02 GMT -6
Still might take a while. The river at Talequaw (sp?) is still flowing at just over 4000 cfs with Barren Fork sitting just over 700. Throw in any smaller tributaries flowing into the lake and we're still looking at over 5000 cfs of inflow. That'll get a bump on Tuesday then it looks pretty clear. I'm hoping they'll bump the outflow back up to at least 6000 and try to get it on down quickly. We shall see. On the Corp of Engineers flood control page (2nd link I listed), it is currently showing showing 6410 cfs incoming to the lake. You’re right, that’s a lot more than the 4000 cfs they are releasing. So how do you know how much is going through the turbines? With 2 gates open 1.5 ft, isn’t most of the water just dumping over there and into the river? You're probably right about the gates. Not sure about the power generation rate. That's way too technical for my brain. LOL
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 22, 2019 10:47:52 GMT -6
On the Corp of Engineers flood control page (2nd link I listed), it is currently showing showing 6410 cfs incoming to the lake. You’re right, that’s a lot more than the 4000 cfs they are releasing. So how do you know how much is going through the turbines? With 2 gates open 1.5 ft, isn’t most of the water just dumping over there and into the river? You're probably right about the gates. Not sure about the power generation rate. That's way too technical for my brain. LOL I stand corrected! The SWPA website is showing 40MW generation 24x7. At 3400 cfs, it is all flowing through the turbines all day and all night with the gates closed. Unfortunately, the lake level is still rising since the inflow is being reported at over 5000 cfs.
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Post by hankinsfly on Jan 22, 2019 11:09:31 GMT -6
It’ll work itself out in a couple weeks. Maybe a shad kill will fatten up those skinny LIR trout. Periods of high generation can be good for the fish.
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Post by hankinsfly on Jan 22, 2019 11:10:07 GMT -6
Oops. What Danimal said!
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 22, 2019 11:27:31 GMT -6
It’ll work itself out in a couple weeks. Maybe a shad kill will fatten up those skinny LIR trout. Periods of high generation can be good for the fish. My guess is 6 to 8 weeks ... sometime in March. Sucks because January and February seem like the two best month for fly fishing on this river.
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Post by dainw on Jan 22, 2019 14:08:32 GMT -6
It sucks for us as fly fishermen but at the end of the day, that river is managed for power generation first, flood control second, and trout fishing third, a distant third. If you look at all of the rmajor tailwaters right now that SWPA manages there isn’t a single one with wadeable flows right now. We’re in peak power demand season right now and all of the reservoirs are full, so they’re gonna run water around the clock.
For what it’s worth, LIR isn’t a holdover river. Wouldn’t matter if they instituted a min flow regime and kept flows to 100 CFS all summer, trout fishing would still suck except for right after a stocking due to temps and stripers moving into the system in June. No reason for SWPA to waste water during the summer when trout fishing is gonna suck anyway and not have any to run the generators off of now. If you look at the the economics of the situation it’s a no brainer. Good news is, if you live Tulsa, roaring river is what, 2 hours away? And that’s way better fishing during the winter than the LIR.
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 22, 2019 16:41:22 GMT -6
So they mismanage all their rivers? Doing absolutely nothing until the lakes get to flood stage and then just pulling the plugs doesn’t sound much like a management system to me.
Higher nighttime flows in the summer and a small reregulation dam a little ways south of MarVal would solve the stripper vs. trout mismatch quite nicely.
I’ve never been to the Roaring River. Gonna have to check it out.
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Post by dainw on Jan 22, 2019 18:29:12 GMT -6
I wouldn’t say they mismanage their rivers. I’d say they correctly manage them considering their primary goal is to make money by selling hydroelectricity. They don’t really care if there’s even one day wadeable flows all year. It’s not why SWPA exists. They don’t make one more red cent if people get to fish.
I’m not a hydroelectric engineer, so I don’t understand all the ins and outs of the utility business, but I think I have a basic understanding of how business works, and water is a commodity. If you’re SWPA it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to run water on summer nights when power demand is at a bare minimum, deplete your water stores, and then have no water to use in the winter when power demand is at its highest. My guess is you probably want to keep the reservoirs at 90-95% capacity so you can have enough water for peak demand but not so high that you’re one rain event away from a massive flood.
As far as building a dam to block migration of stripers upstream goes, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River system is a world class striper fishery and the Lower Illinois River is an integral part of that fishery, in fact the state record striper came from the lower Illinois. Why mess a up a great striper fishery to protect a bunch of stocked trout? It’s not like that river produces wild fish or anything like that. It’s always been more or less a seasonal stocker fishery. Same fish they are dumping in the blue river right now that will all be dead by May. No reason to mess with a perfectly good striper fishery to protect a couple stockers. I’d be willing to wager most of the fly fishing community would prefer to catch a striper to a stocked trout any day of the week. I know I would.
I get that you’re passionate about it man. I like fishing there too in the wintertime and it’s the closest thing to OKC for me by a long shot. I think you just have to accept that trout fishing isn’t why these big dams were created, it’s just a by product of creating them and we sometimes get favorable enough conditions that we get to go enjoy them. Just the nature of fishing tailwaters. I’m not kidding about checking out roaring river either. There’s a bunch of stuff in Missouri that you would like and almost none of them are tailwaters. Roaring river is catch and release flies only through the middle of February, as are the other 3 trout parks. Crane creek is pretty close for you too and it’s all wild fish over there. There’s a lot of trout water over there in fact and they do a good job with regulations. As close as you are you should look into it.
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Post by glitchmo on Jan 22, 2019 18:59:51 GMT -6
Water managers at a local level have very little leeway, in most cases. The flow regimes are dictated by a frankly arcane set of laws and priorities and water rights of downstream users that have, in most cases, very little to do with fishing.
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Post by danimal on Jan 22, 2019 19:38:04 GMT -6
It’ll work itself out in a couple weeks. Maybe a shad kill will fatten up those skinny LIR trout. Periods of high generation can be good for the fish. My guess is 6 to 8 weeks ... sometime in March. Sucks because January and February seem like the two best month for fly fishing on this river. I guess I'll be doing my trout fishing on the LMFR for the next month or so. Come March, I'll be chasing pre-spawn smallmouth -- come on Springtime!!
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Post by FlyAndStream on Jan 22, 2019 20:13:17 GMT -6
When's the best time to fish the LIR for stripers? That sounds like fun.
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Post by darrelln09 on Jan 22, 2019 20:22:43 GMT -6
Water managers at a local level have very little leeway, in most cases. The flow regimes are dictated by a frankly arcane set of laws and priorities and water rights of downstream users that have, in most cases, very little to do with fishing. I know. I know. Up until just a few years ago the minimum flow valve was leaky and the off-hour flows were around 200 cfs. Now that it’s fixed the minimum flows go down to near 25 cfs. I’d like to think the local operators could “calibrate” that valve a little more generously but I’m probably wrong on thinking that.
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