West Branch

[dooberhoopa]

I was just wondering if anyone has been fishing long enough to have been around the last time the Cannonsville got as low as it is now. It is below 40%. Do they start drawing from differnt reservoirs soon or just run it dry> Hopefully Earl heads up this way and drops some much needed rain up in that area! And that the weather finally cooperates and cools down some!

[AaronJasper]

You get what you get there. I've see it as low as 17%. I think it was about ten or twelve years ago.

I am at work now and I'll say this one ... It sucks!

[dooberhoopa]

Does the water out of the damn begin to warm up?

[AaronJasper]

Yes does warm up. I have seen it coming out of the dam at 74 degrees. I remember looking at the USGS web site and thinking that there's no way that it could be that hot. I went up there to find a hot mess. The water was high, hot and dirty as it could get.

Cannonsville is not a huge lake and in years where there is little rain and water is needed to satusfy the Montigue target, it can get quite warm. I remember that as the level neared 30 percent that it began to warm. We will have to see.

[Gene]

They drew it down to 3 percent, probably 7-8 years ago.
Gene

[AaronJasper]

Gene,

That was the year that it never filled up in the spring and the water was warmer than normal in the summer right?

[Gene]

Sorry Aaron I'm not sure about the following summer. I know the FUDR and the environmental groups were quite quite upset for obvious reasons. With the 3 floods and the drawdown things get a little mixed up. I'll ask around this weekend someone will remember.
Gene

[AaronJasper]

I remember one spring that the lake was only 70 percent full going into late May. Then we had a bunch of rain and it went to 80 or so percent. The water was in the 50's coming out of the dam to start the summer and it went up from there.

Ask them I would be curious to see if that was the following summer.

[Gene]

Sorry Aaron but nobody remembered the exact year but it was in the last 6-8. My records show a major flood in Sept. 2004, late March early April 2005 (delayed opening of campground by 1 week) and the last was late June early July 2006. 2006 affected all the Catskills the previous years mostly the Beaverkill and East Branch. The West Branch was hit hard in 2006. The water treatment plant in Deposit was hit hard and the Factory Pool is changed considerably as is many others. West Branch Angler certainly has a different look today. If I were to guess the year of the 3 percent drawdown I would guess 2003. Just a guess though, they have always and will continue to misuse the water out of Cannonsviile.
Gene

[YKK]

It's really to bad that the river is abused by the city. I was there a few weeks ago and the conditions were good. But the fishing was not all that good.