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RETURN to Putah Creek Trout -> Putah Creek Fly Fishing Forum -> Putah Creek Fly Fishing -> bad news for man made gravel areas
Post Info TOPIC: bad news for man made gravel areas
bono


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bad news for man made gravel areas
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the newly constructed gravel spawning bed that myself and a lot of others created is now completely covered with about 2-3 feet of mud. I took a ride up to the resort yesterday morning just to look at the gravel augmentation site just above the resort and was bummed to see the mud that washed out of the canyon on the north side of the creek is now completely covering a once productive spawning site. These kinds of storms wash in an amazing amount of mud and debris , especially with the fires on both sides of the creek the past 3 years. There will never be enough flow to remove the silt without the glory hole spilling over or a major release from the dam. We haven't seen that in about 15 or so years. I have never in the past 40 years seen this much silt choking the creek. The lake is still a loooong way from full, I'm guessing about 30 ft. Even lake solano is filling in with weeds and silt. I spoke with a person from SCWA and even they are not sure how to address the situation.



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Greg Bonovich
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Mike42


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Greg, I was out at the creek last Friday (Jan. 7th) and took a look a the gravel bed from the opposite side to the resort. The water clarity was probably less than 18" and there was some silt on the gravel but the resort side shore line appeared to be the same as when we laid the gravel. Your photos are shocking! Looking at the creek flows, there was a huge surge from 100cfs to over 700cfs in 12 hours causing the water level at the gauge site to rise 2.5 feet on Sunday (the 8th). That surge must have produced all of that mud and the alteration to the shore line. While it may have set back our efforts to create new redds for this year we can still hope that the older breeding grounds down stream will hold up and be productive. We may have to think about constructing some sort of containment dams to hold back the mud from the feeder creeks on the upper portion of Putah Creek.

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Rossflyguy


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Creek hit 1200-1400. In sure things have been flushing out. I'm going to stop by tomorrow and take a look at the creek. Curious to see it after this last push of water.

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Rorobot


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Were you able to check things out? Im curious how this next round of storms will effect things.



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Rossflyguy


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No I wasn't able too.

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lightfoot


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Water is extremely high going under I-80 .

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Winter eats heat the way darkness swallows light. The terrors of failed power and frozen stems are stymied with fire, smoke and white ash.

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Bob Loblaw


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Well that SUCKS!  I was worried about runoff from the burn, but to see it all on top of that nice spawning bed is very disheartening.  We need to write off this year's spawn and hope for a gully buster to scour all that sludge out of the creek.

How close is the water level to the glory hole?



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mudhen


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I was out looking at the creek yesterday and it is even WORSE now than Gregs pictures. The creek just past the resort is a giant slug of mud just waiting to be sent down to No.3 access, and it is filling in the frog water between runs, which also sucks as those are major food sources for the fish downstream. The Gloryhole needs about ten or so inches of rain to go over the top. Let's all hope. The gloryhole is about 9.5 feet from the top.

 

 



-- Edited by mudhen on Monday 6th of February 2017 12:19:04 PM

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SK60


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It's under 7 feet to the glory hole-6.8' this morning. Flows hit 1100 cfs overnight; more mud I'm sure.



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SK60


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5.1 ft to spill and counting.....

 

http://www.scwamonitoring.com/floodmap/lakelevel1.htm



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Rossflyguy


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This next storm Thursday should get it close if not slightly over.

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DrDan


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Everyone do a rain dance! We need a scour bad.



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mudhen


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Slightly over is a hell of a lot of water, isn't it?

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lightfoot


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Not really.  A couple of feet above the rim sure would be nice though.



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Winter eats heat the way darkness swallows light. The terrors of failed power and frozen stems are stymied with fire, smoke and white ash.

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mudhen


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So if it rose to just a couple of inches over the top it would dribble and drab? I thought that two inches of a big ass lake would be a lot of water, but I've never seen it go over and flow out. I HAVE however, tried to skate the pipe. Really, really rough and SCARY!

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