creek flows

Walt · Member

creek flows

Resolute · Member

Hey Walt,

I'm curious. How do you find out the flows? Is there a report or some chart or depth meter somewhere? I'm a newbie to Putah.

Thanks,

Angelo

Walt · Member

You can access them on the home page of this website and are based on USGS data. They are also available other places, such as the American Fly Fishing Company (Sacramento) website.

chemdoc · Senior Member

I suspect that you may be right Walt, that this drop is a glitch in the system. Last time I called the USGS and they corrected the error.

Phil

strip4bigtail · Member

it looks like the flow drops very quickly over about 6-7 hours, unlike the last drop which was very discrete and small in time.... If my memory is correct. if that is the case it could be real data...let you know tomarrow.

shon42073 · Senior Member

i fished sunday and it was as low as i ever have seen, i think the flows are indeed correct, was so low made it kinda tough to fish.

Walt · Member

I fished today. The flows appear to be accurate. Very low and more difficult to find the bigger fish in my opinion. Maybe they are spooked by the rapid drop in the water level.

Nohackle · Senior Member

I keep a journal of all of my fishing trips and as part of my journal I record the stream flow. Stream flows in the low 50's is not that unusual; the stream flow has now reached its "Winter" level. This does not mean that the flow won't fluctuate some, but generally, they will be keeping the stream flow low for the next several months. They did this last year. However, the horrendous rain storms we got in early January put Lake Berryessa over the glory hole and the stream flooded out.

lightfoot · Senior Member

Lower flows means it's time to take my boy (daughter wants to go too) back up to the creek.

At summer flow levels I just don't feel safe with my kids fishing up there.

MotoGP · Veteran Member

To the last post....

Yeah you need to be careful up there. Both my grandparents live in Vacaville and Fairfield and they have told me stories about their friends drowning in the creek when they were in high school. So respect the water no matter how low it is. All in all good luck and be safe.

lightfoot · Senior Member

MotoGP wrote:

To the last post....

Yeah you need to be careful up there. Both my grandparents live in Vacaville and Fairfield and they have told me stories about their friends drowning in the creek when they were in high school. So respect the water no matter how low it is. All in all good luck and be safe.

LOL I was born and raised in Vacaville. I started fishing Putah when I was a kid. Around age 12 or so a buddy and I used to talk one of our parents to drive us up there in the morning and drop us off. At a predetermined time in the afternoon the other parentt would pick us up.

The crazy thing was we used to scale the rocks above the glory hole to get to the base of the dam and fish. It only took a couple of trips before we realized it was easier, faster and a LOT safer to hike to the top of the dam, jump the fence and climb down. BTW whenever you read in the paper about somebody falling to their death at the creek it is almost always somebody trying to scale the rocks above the output....bad bad bad idea.

We had F&G yell at us a couple of times from across the glory hole outlet but with the wind and water we couldn't hear a word they said....granted we knew exactly what they wanted but they didn't want to climb over to where we were ;). Fishing was hit or miss but we did poull out one very large and ugly brown that had only a couple of spots on it. Was a mutant looking thing.

The neatest thing is watching fish try and swim up into the glory hole when there is just a trickle flowing over. They push their way about 20-30 feet and the current blows them boack out. They hang out on the edge and rest before trying it again.

When it's dry you can walk in it and climb the elbow high enough to peak around the bend and see daylight above. Granted about that time some idiot decides to throw a rock or beer bottle into the top. I couldn't say how many times I've been inside that thing but it was fun every time.

bono · Master Fly Fishing Guide

yeah Rob,I remember those days well.I don't think you were with us at the time but myself and I think it was Willey Rhodes (remember him?) climbed those same rocks and to make a long story short ,almost fell to what would have been certain broken bones or worse!As far as the stream flows are concerned I believe they should be increasing a little bit soon.Usually this time of year SID does some maintenance work and has to drop the flows as a result.October flows should hover around 100-150 cfs generally speaking of course.

lightfoot · Senior Member

LOL yeah Greg thats a scary climb. Ken and I used to make that trip. Nothing like holding your fishing pole in your teeth so you had two hands free to keep from falling.

You know Willie passed away about 10 or so years ago right?

-- Edited by lightfoot at 04:57, 2006-10-23