FEW Lehigh dam capacity question for those who may know

[krayfish]

First and foremost, the dam is for flood control. Rafting / fishing are simply by products. The cold water pool is managed horribly though. I'm waiting for PFBC to follow through and start Raystown as a bottom released cold water fishery. I'm thinking it has the potential to match or surpass the Delaware for hatches and fish size. Come on gubment, get off your a$$ and lets get cracking. I want to fish it before I'm 70.

 

[vcregular]

Welp, a stated secondary purpose of the project is recreation. This for years has mainly meant the inlake fishery and the downstream rafting interests. Just lately, within the last 10 years or so since the road was moved there has been more priority than ever before on the downstream fishery - because water CAN be stored up to the 15% encroachment of the flood storage without inundating that stupid road.

Regardless, management of that reservoir imo can no doubt be better. And honestly that needs to come from the anglers who for lack of a better phrase need to b!tch and moan, so that the PFBC can make recommendations. The Corps won't listen to a non profit, but have said they will take instructions from the PFBC.

 

[LehighRegular]

The cold water pool is managed horribly though

Krayfish - the Corps is very limited in how they can manage the coldwater pool.

The majority of the water being released has to come off the bottom. There is a small gate that can discharge about 300 cfs above the big bottom flood gates. But that doesn't really help in regulating water temps for an extended period of time.

So when there are big releases of water for flood control and whitewater rafting, the bottom flood gates are opened and guess where all the coldwater goes?? Down into the Delaware. Once the coldwater is gone, its gone for the summer until inflow water temperatures drop in the Fall.

The FEW reservoir is antiquated and needs to be upgraded to meet todays recreational demands. As VC said, this really needs to be spearheaded by the PFBC. But the PFBC won't do anything unless anglers "ask" their local commissioners or AFMs (like Mike K, et al). Dave Arnold is the AFM for the FEW Reservoir.

This also goes for other large reservoirs, like Raystown, Beltzville, etc.

 

[PhilC]

This is the time of year that you can expect a heart breaker...the temps are slowing creeping up, after another white water or flood release it will likely spike and be done until September

 

[krayfish]

I thought they had top, middle and bottom gates at FEW. Guess not. It's like a much better version of the Tully. Cold water I'd gone by mid-late June. At least the Lehigh has some thermal refuge from feeders, sting seepage and the PO.

 

[BeastBrown]

Are river otters protected at all, where do these things birth their pups. I doubt they like to get drowned if it's in banks of the river after a raft release. Maybe that is why I don't see more down there, because I know they are in Red Rock, so if someone is seeing them down in Allentown, maybe they don't like the fluctuations on the Lehigh for offspring?

Those seeps are what have allowed most of us to experience trout year round in the upper Gorge, some of the seeps are whole mountain sides of water, which is probably the result of the protected sgls and state parks that run above and throughout the Gorge. A lot of big seeps that I only found from doing some not so safe explorin.

 

[LehighRegular]

beast

the problem is you can only jam so many trout into those spring seeps which also leads to added stress, predation (man & natural) and spread of disease because the fish are so close together.

If the river (or a significant portion of the river) was kept cool all summer long, can you imagine the numbers of trout that may be in there to catch?

 

[BeastBrown]

LehighRegular wrote:
beast

the problem is you can only jam so many trout into those spring seeps which also leads to added stress, predation (man & natural) and spread of disease because the fish are so close together.

If the river (or a significant portion of the river) was kept cool all summer long, can you imagine the numbers of trout that may be in there to catch?

I hear ya, if that water was cooled with added dam depth we would be looking at a tremendous density of browns and a lot more brookies of great size in my opinion. I have caught some large native brookies > 13" as is.

There is a lot of good food right now, hellgramites, golden stones, chubs, suckers, lotta ant sand mounds dumping them in. I dunno know if cooler water would benefit some other types of shiners or not, but who knows.

And, of course, the access is pretty phenomenal even above the bike trail in White Haven.

 

[PhilC]

Anyone know if there is a gage that shows the pool level?

I'm trying to figure out what will happen this weekend...somehow it will end up being a blow out if its a time when I can fish

 

[steliejim]

To find the dam pool, google few dam level. Scroll down to ptd.net lehigh and it will be on a link.

Will not be fishable this weekend due to inflow of 1200+ as of this writing.

 

[Wharfrat]

May try to get up there on July 4 if the flow and temps are good.
Is the Lehigh a morning or afternoon game this time of year ? I will be mostly nymphing so it may not matter.

 

[wgmiller]

krayfish wrote:
I'm waiting for PFBC to follow through and start Raystown as a bottom released cold water fishery.

I've often wondered with the depth and size of Raystown Lake why there isn't a tailwater fishery...

 

[BeastBrown]

Wharfrat wrote:
May try to get up there on July 4 if the flow and temps are good.
Is the Lehigh a morning or afternoon game this time of year ? I will be mostly nymphing so it may not matter.

As long as the water is cooler, like now, you can fish in the morning with isonychia nymphs. Impart motion to them. Short little micro-strips as they swing. You can get fish to come up to the dries in the middle of the day, provided that the water is cold, in the more isolated parts of the river. They will come right off the bottom for a size 12 iso dry with nothing on top. It can be done, but usually works best in shaded banks in medium depth water. Wet works well too.

At night, then the big fish further down river start to feed on the isos, and that lasts right into dark. For that, you want to find a spot outside the state park to stay after dark for fat browns.

 

[wildtrout2]

That river is BLOWN OUT, and will be worse after the predicted rains that are on the way.

 

[SBecker]

wgmiller wrote:

krayfish wrote:
I'm waiting for PFBC to follow through and start Raystown as a bottom released cold water fishery.

I've often wondered with the depth and size of Raystown Lake why there isn't a tailwater fishery...

Straight from the mouth of Dave Arnold..... The striper fishery is more important. It would be very difficult to have a world class striper population and at the same time have a trout tailwater due to thermal issues.

 

[vcregular]

I say keep the rain coming. Maybe we can have some trout fishing after July 4. Really the downstream temps have not gotten that high as of yet. And even if they have the flows have been big.

Becker/Kray - the whole thing about protecting the two tier fishery is a red herring imo. Not one time have I seen evidence of the Beltzville two tier fishery being effected by the massive releases that from time to time are need to be flushed from Beltzville in order for the lake level to be kept in check to accommodate the ramps. I'm talking about 1500cfs (which is the max that can be released from Beltz) for extended periods of time. Obviously in normal operations the anglers would not be looking for these kinds of releases! All we are asking for is a slow trickle of coldwater. Doubtful this would be much of an impact.

As far as I am concerned the two tier fishery protection agenda is an excuse to do nothing.

 

[BeastBrown]

So much water going down river that the pool doesn't have enough time to cool I don't think. Is that what is happening here? It is at 1372ft, coming out at 1900 cfs, and it is 68F at the below dam gauge. So if it is held to 1390s height, and it is capped there, how much of a difference would it make?

 

[LehighRegular]

Beast

The water in the reservoir doesn't really "cool down" because of depth. The water from the spring run off/snow melt when its coming into the lake at 40F, needs to be reserved and held for use during the summer time.

Unfortunately, FEW can't do that because it can only release the water off the bottom. A new control tower with gates at various elevations in the lake is needed. Then the Corps can discharge water from the surface during the spring at higher elevations when the lake surface water is "cool" enough for the trout. THen as summer warms the water in the lake, the Corps would begin to use the gates lower/deeper in the tower/lake to discharge the cooler water below the thermocline.

If the Corps had a tower that has multiple gates at different elevations (Like Beltzville Reservoir), they could discharge warmer water during Flood control events or Whitewater releases and not "waste" the coldwater from the depths of the lake.

Right now the Corps can't do that. They are basically handcuffed. The only way to preserve the coldwater in the lake is what I described above. Once the coldwater is gone, its gone till the Fall time when inflow water temps into the lake drop because of the cooler weather.

Tell the boys at the PFBC this is what you want to improve the fishery. Stay on them, don't let them "weasel" their way out of it because it will be "too expensive" or "not pay for itself" or "angler use is low"......which is an entirely different story..

Did I answer your question? More storage would allow for more coldwater in the lake, but the WW releases and high flood control releases (like now) deplete that coldwater quickly and even at 1390 feet the lake would still run out of coldwater.

 

[krayfish]

Shane,

I'll call bs on his statement. World class striper fishing? I'm sure people are traveling from all over the country to fish it. I'll second the statement that it's an excuse.

 

[BeastBrown]

Yeah, LR, thanks for the info. I knew generally that the big problem was always the lack of release capabilities at FEW. Just didn't know how much of a factor keeping the height at 1370 this late in the summer played in cool water coming out of the bottom. And I guess the answer is that it's not really cooling much at all as you explained .