The Crooked River. Still running fine, and fishing normal. It is like telling people about a relative with a terminal diagnosis. Any day now, it will probably change for the worse. It is likely to stay okay for the month of August, but no one on the irrigation side can (or will) say for sure.
So, I guess we fish it and make the best of it until the bad days hit?
Mahogany Duns and PMD’s and some Caddis are all taking fish off the top. Euro Nymphs are rocking it below.
I have had many emails with many people on this Crooked River issue. All I can say is I am discouraged. There may be glimmers of hope for a no 10 cfs world….But I am skeptical of that because in doing the math on what the reservoir storage is now, and what 10 cfs compared to 50 cfs would do to acre feet storage over the course of a month, let alone the course of several months, the water is just not there.
I had friends (Science Geeks Matt and John) help me with calculations and I am figuring it would take 21 weeks to drain the reservoir to Zero if it ends at 15,000 acre feet in a month. We have to assume over 5 months that should put us in the wet time of year….but that is a terrible predicament any way we look at this problem. The fact is, the reservoir is practically out of water and the trout are going to get hurt over the short term, and likely longer if we don’t have one hell of a wet winter coming up.