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We went fishing on the Snake Thursday afternoon and caught 21 bass. We went back Friday and caught 44 in about 2 1/2 hours both of these were personal bests for bass in a day. We went back to the same spot on Saturday after the storm had passed through. The water had risen a ton, the rocks we were fishing from previously were all covered in water in it was flowing way faster. We only caught 2 in 3 1/2 hours.
I'm curious if the water levels on the Snake follow any pattern? I had assumed they started high in the spring and then as more and more water was taken out for irrigation ect it got lower and lower through the summer, and then started rising again in the fall, but with how much it had risen yesterday I'm rethinking that opinion.
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Water levels in the Snake River will rise and fall in some sections due to local tributary streams, especially if the streams are in the upper end of the North Fork of the Snake River. Warm River and the Teton River and the Portneuf River near Pocatello can have some effect. However, the dams on the North and South Forks and main Snake River have pretty much controlled flooding from historical springtime rises in the Snake from melting snows. You may have been fishing somewhere close to a tributary stream to the Snake River. The Bureau of Reclamation, a arm of the Federal Government regulates stream flows of the Snake River for flood control, irrigation and electricity generation. The first two greatly determine the quantity or volume of water released through the dams and does affect both spawning and fishing quality in the river. As a general rule, water levels in the Snake River, especially the upper part down to the Columbia River are higher in the Spring, lower mid summer and lowest in the Fall as water is beginning to be stored in the reservoirs for the next irrigation season.
DeeCee
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Thanks for the information. I was fishing near the Murtaugh Bridge and I couldn't beleive how much the water rose overnight. Even while we were there the rocks we were standing on at first were covered in water by the time we left.
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Cantstopfishing, it is amazing just how fast water can rise. Flooding has caused many a species of fish to escape an otherwise "contained" water environment only to end up causing a lot of damage to a good existing fishery.
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check the bureau of reclamation site for streamflow data on the snake. it has a table with all the info you will need to keep tabs on the river and water levels of both the river and reservoirs. you can click on individual measurement points and it will show a graph of where the river is at, what it averages throughout the year and the previous years streamflow data. great site and I use it tons.
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I've had the same problem for the past week. I live in twin falls and in the past week I've fished both the snake below shoshone and the snake at murtaugh bridge in normally successful spots and it's been dead. I don't know if the bad fishing is a result of the high water though - even tried for cats on murtaugh lake(we normally catch a bunch) and we only caught 2 in 3 hours of fishing.
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Welcome to BFT, Badger126. Nice first post with some good helpful information. Hope the fishing picks back up.
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Thanks for the information everyone. I've just got to take some time and figure out how to read those water flows, and figure out what it was at when the fishing was so good!
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