Yesterday I was planning a trip to Proctor but the winds look favorable for trip to below the dam at PK. I was up up early. Changed the rigging and took off. Arrived in good order. BTW the bathroom below the dam was really well kept. About the best I have seen. Kudos to the BRA for that.
I had tried to get information on what was going on at the dam but my BRA link was broken. Should have spent a little more effort there as you will see.
Parked at the 16 bridge and paddled, pedalled dragged up. Arrived below the dam. Tried to catch some shad with no luck. Did cast net up some perch. There are plenty of them. And since this is October I thought they might work. The wind was too light at first but it picked up a little to marginal. First balloon drift I caught a little Striper. So I figured the perch would work.
They shut the water off coming out of the dam. I mean it was down to a trickle. I was wondering if I should scoot out of there while I still could. But I figured they couldn't leave it off for long. 3 guys came down and paddled the raft that they use to work on the dam across to the other side. They got out, and left the raft, got in a truck and drove back to the other side. So I am wondering what in the heck is going on. A little later they drove a lift truck down and extracted the raft.
I had a hard time figure out the wind but some time later I got another good drift up to where the water was trickling down. Caught a nice size Channel Cat.
While I was drifting balloons I pulled out another rod and tried a Kastmaster. Caught a 8" LMB.
They turned the water back on after a couple of hours. But at that point it would have been a rocky drag to go down stream. So I continued to fish waiting for the water to come back up. Got another drift going and hooked a 15" LMB.
I heard somebody on a megaphone say. "The fellow in the kayak, wave if you hear me". My eyes locked on a BRA SUV up the hill and I waved. They informed me that they intended to open a gate in a few minutes. I immediately prepared to get down stream. Dumped water out of my 5 gallon fresh water bait tank. But when I started to paddle the paddle broke. This is a paddle that I built a couple of years ago and has never given any indication that there was anything wrong with it. So I used it like a canoe paddle to get to that down to the falls area. Didn't want to have negotiate that area under duress. When I got below there I released the 4 perch I had left and got rid of some more water out of the bait tank. The tank will fill itself but it won't empty itself. Put my pedals in and started downstream. The flow was still a little light So I had to raise my rudder and feather the fins and drag a bunch. I was trying to hurry. I didn't want to get caught in rising water.
Couple hundred yards from the bridge the BRA were waiting for me. They suggested I pull out there and they would drive me to my truck and then I could drive back and they'd help me load up. Sounded like a great idea with my paddle broken and I was tired from trying to hurry.
On the way out we had to go through the fish hatchery. The BRA guys explained what we wanted to do the one of the fish hatchery guys who was sitting on a tractor mower. This hatchery guy sat there for several seconds and then threatened to lock the gate! BRA guys explained again what we wanted to do and the hatchery guy acquiesced.
So we drove down to my truck and I followed them back up. Water was already starting to rise as we loaded up and I drove out. Kudos to BRA guys Watts and Bullock (hope I got those names right). Big help. Hatchery guy? Not so much.
Noticed quite a few dead Stripers.

Glad to hear you didn't end up on the news! Sounds like that could have been a really bad experience! Good on those guys.

Ive had similair experiences with hatchery folks.

Did they open a flood gate or just one of the small gates on the front of the dam? Opening the flood gates wrecked striper fishing in the lake this year. Most of the bigger fish went down river.

Glad you made it out of there ok and it would have been a shame to ruin one of your nice yaks. I saw you in one out there one time, nice work. With my plastic yak I probably would have just strapped in and did some white water yakking!

Good report.

Glad you made it out safely after your paddle broke.

But, dang it, you may be banned for using the word, acquiesced, as many will think the word's origin is from the Latin "aqua" and that somehow, someone must have gotten wet. And, they want details!

Then, you had the audacity to spell it correctly! Strike number 2.

Ha! All in fun! Brad

My computer does spell check when I post. If it's spelled wrong, it's my fault.

One of those small square gates had been reopened as I wrote above but they must have opened one of the big gates as there was considerable water flowing when I stopped back at the the 16 bridge. Enough so that I don't think anyone could paddle upstream and it was dirty.

Water is very clear down by the dam. If they got dirty water it's because they opened the valve where the generator used to be and pulled water from the bottom of the lake.

Scary stuff when they have that water coming out hard. Back in the spring I saw two kayakers out in this:



I took pics of them because I figured they would be killed but apparently they were OK. Told me they got flipped over but did a self rescue. No way I would be in that.