Tully DH temps/Blue Marsh cold water reserve

[Mike]

Looks as though Blue Marsh ran out of cold water earlier this year than I can recall occurring in many years, although I don't watch that statistic each year. Looks like the cold water was depleted around July 9 since they could no longer hit the 8 AM target temp of 68 F. Normal depletion occurs between July 22 and Aug 2.

 

[outsider]

A friend of mine at a local fly shop told me he contacted the COE concerning this. The answer given is they are mixing in high level water in the reservoir to reduce/eliminate blue-green algae. My past experience shows if there is high flow and no fishing, many fish will survive.

 

[Mike]

High flow and no fishing (no C&R delayed mortality, no photo op delayed mortality, no harvest) all due to prohibitive flows are only two of the four possible variables that I can quickly identify, with the most important one being water temps.

The other variable may be lesser impact of avian predation with higher flows/more turbid water, but my experience from night fishing for stocked trout is that they will come into nearly ankle deep water along the shore, so higher water may not affect great blue heron predation. They are good presators 24/7.

 

[outsider]

Mike, I was considering the current water temperature when I made my post.