Yesterday the UPS driver was telling me that the water is coming up in BF res. He was saying that it had been durn near drained for a few years. Hopefully the water level will continue to rise and the fishing will come back.
Anyone else heard anything about this pond?
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JoyRide, it may take a couple of seasons for it to get back to where it was. I know down here that is the case with Porcupine. About when the drought started is when they started working on the dam to do some repairs. It was about 4 years before it filled again. It has been two years now since it filled and last year the fishing was still not back to where it was before they started working on the dam.
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]Thanks for the good knews. [/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]The snow gage (Somsen Ranch) by Blackfoot Reservoir shows that snowpack in that area is is doing better this winter than it has for several years. Blackfoot Reservoir has never been a very consistent trout fishery.[/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]Here's a few things the F&G have said about Blackfoot Reservoir during the last year.[/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]June 2005[/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]"All other trout-fishing reservoirs except Blackfoot Reservoir have been stocked and should provide good fishing this summer. Blackfoot Reservoir had been drained so low for the past two years (down to 4% of volume) that stocked fish have not survived in sufficient numbers to justify stocking. Because the Blackfoot Reservoir basin is large relative to the area of the watershed, a few months of above normal precipitation does not re-fill Blackfoot Reservoir. It is unlikely that the reservoir will fill to more than 1/3 full this year."[/size][/font]
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[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]September 2005[/size][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3]"Blackfoot Reservoir, famous for its large native cutthroat trout and hatchery rainbows has suffered during the drought. In multi-year droughts, the volume progressively decreases. From 1999 to 2004, annual maximum volume decreased from 98% full to only 17% full (from 342,500 to 58,400 acre-feet, respectively). The abundant precipitation in the spring of 2005 allowed Blackfoot Reservoir to fill to 37% full (130,000 acre-feet); not great, but better than in 2003 and 2004. The run of native cutthroat up the Blackfoot River was at an all time low in 2005; about 20 spawners, compared to 4,747 spawners counted in 2001. Pelicans ate many of the spawners in 2003 and 2004 as the trout migrated from the reservoir into the upper river. These birds took advantage of several miles of shallow, wide channel with no undercut banks or protective riparian vegetation that emerged when the reservoir progressively declined 20 vertical feet. During the 2005 cutthroat trout migration the Fish and Game Department made it difficult for pelicans to feed on migrating cutthroat trout by cris-crossing the lower river with lines suspended above the water. Unfortunately, water quality in Blackfoot Reservoir is marginal for cutthroat trout survival when the reservoir is low so there were few cutthroat spawners available to benefit from the bird-lines. When the reservoir fills to capacity again pelican predation will be much less of a mortality factor on cutthroat trout spawners. The highlight of the upper Blackfoot River this year has been the abundance of 8 to 14 inch long cutthroat trout, the progeny of the abundant spawners from 2000 through 2002. Anglers have had very good catch rates on these fish, which helps make up for finding very few of the16 to 22 inch post-spawners that this river is famous for."[/size][/font]
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Thanks Brian, that was great information on the conditions at Blackfoot res. The drought has definitely had an impact on some fisheries.
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