Well folks, the drought is gonna start getting painfully obvious, and quick.
This week (supposedly tomorrow!) they're setting the waterflow below Milner Dam to ZERO cfs.
([url "http://www.ktvb.com/news/Low-Snake-River-flow--210026791.html"]story link[/url])
[signature]
They started last Saturday, we were fishing a tournament and the water started getting dirty. Was kinda hard to bed fish. This means IadhoRon can get to sugar cube and now I have to wait for fall.
[signature]
This should be an interesting experience for all below Milner Snake River fishermen. We should learn some things about the river that perhaps were unknown. I fish between Homedale and Walter's Ferry almost every weekday. Yesterday (Monday) the Murphy gage showed a very sharp increase in flow and then a drastic drop. Down at Marsing it was not very noticeable. The bass didn't seem to care. Today I fished further upstream and found no change in water level. Again, the fishing was fine. The water is dirtier than is usual for June, and there are lots of weeds in the water.
I would be very interested in learning what conditions are throughout the summer from fishermen upstream of Swan Falls dam.
The fish I have been catching have spawned, so probably there will be no year class missing in the future. The only problems I see for the summer will be launching a boat and the depredation by birds and bigger fish as the river shrinks.
I think this will be a very educational and interesting summer of fishing the Snake.
[signature]
Guys, you have been hooked by the media. I have lived in Kimberly all my life and the river is dry every year below the hansen bridge. The recent 2000 cfs flow was great, it allowed me to take the jetboat to the honeyhole, usually we can't get there until August. The only difference this year was there were no early spring high flows like years past. There are lots of springs from here to CJ and you can still boat at Pillar Falls, Twin Falls, Shoshone Falls, Thousand Spring, Bell Rapids, Bliss Dam, King Hill, Glenns Ferry, Hammett and Swan Falls. The sky is not falling. That dam Al Gore!
PS: The fish at Milner are in great shape, best I've seen for 5 years, takes 15 lbs to cash a check.
[signature]
Personally, I never felt the sky was falling. I looked at the low water as a learning experience. Nonetheless, the media was not all wrong. The shut off date this year was one month earlier than average. And since all the rivers and streams that eventually fill the Snake are also experiencing low water, I think we will see a very low Snake River - at least down here in Canyon/Owyhee counties.
The lowest water level ever recorded at the Murphy gage was 2.22' on July 7, 1981. The river flow was 3650 cfs at that time. Last night the level dropped to 2.73' and 5050 cfs. This is the lowest the river has been all year. I still think we're going to see very low water levels, and perhaps a record low.
[signature]
5000cfm? Well it looks like Im done putting my boat in the river for the summer.
[signature]