As we mentioned last week, flows were up up and away the past few days for the simulated “freshet”. The freshet simulates a typical run-off river flow before Palisades Dam was built. It helps the ecology of the South Fork in several ways, inhibiting invasive species reproduction, protecting native fish and also has many benefits to the extensive Cottonwood forest.
It looks like flows peaked yesterday at 18,000 cfs. and were dropped 1,000 cfs last night. We expect flows to continue to drop until it reaches a level that satisfies irrigation demands. In the past this would put flows right around 15,000 cfs.
This past week we hosted a great group of 24 kids from On River Time, what a fun week! It’s so great to have the young energy flowing at the lodge. Check out their excellent blog post about their stay. With water on the rise fishing can be tough but our guides know the fish still have to eat and know where to find them. Fishing was most productive with large attractor nymphs.
With flows dropping now we expect the fishing to improve a lot this next week. I am sure some guides will be headed to the lower river hoping to find fish interested in Salmon Fly Nymphs with the big dries coming with the next 10 days or so? We’ll let you know when we find em.
