A guy I keep in contact with said they opened a couple of the gates on the spillway again. They said it is not as bad as last time but do not know how long they will be open. I'll post some pics later.

From LMFRF president Pat Waters:

Board and Members,




This morning, without warning or fanfare, the USACE (Corp) opened two of the Spillway flood gates. We have not been able to reach anyone in a resposible roll to answer our questions. And, of course, there are rumors. We did speak with Jim Miller, head of the Park, and he was as surprised as anyone else. He spoke with someone at the Corp. and has been told that it will stay this way for the next 45 days. Others have heard that it is going to stay like this for 60 days.




With the weather being what it is and has been, with spring rains and a full lake, anything may happen.




So - assume that the gates are going to stay open for the foreseeable future, and leave it at that.




I spoke with Jesse King on the phone. This is not as bad as the flood of 2009. It is a lower flow with less velocity so we are hoping for much less damage. Jesse feels that it is fishable but you better know what you're doing, how to look for trout in whole new places, and be VERY CAREFUL!




Sorry to bear the bad news,




Patrick Waters

LMFRF

Pics here:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lower-Mountain-Fork-River-Foundation/121582697864666

Sad to see that. Really sad there is no communication between the park and the Corps. I sure hope no one got hurt. Word was emergency crews had to rescue some folks.

45-60 days will kill the businesses down there.

Well, this sure messes up the trip that was planned for later this week...

Rex-

I'm with you, this will mess things up. I usually try to fish LMF in April, as it warms up, and before the schools let out and it gets crowded.

Bill

One rumor is that the turbines on the generators at the plant have developed a problem of some kind, so they have to release through the spillway for the time being. That could explain the suddenness of this. I imagine someone will update.

^^^^

Makes sense now why they stated 45-60 days. If they have to reorder parts and do repairs it could take that long. I was wondering how they could forecast the rain 45 days ahead of time.

Generators ran yesterday...... according to Govt website

Gates are currently allowing 1000-1800 CFS thru. That is in a channel where 150 is 'full'.

Latest Update from LMFRF president Pat Waters

At 3pm this afternoon I had a good talk with Mr. Mark Ellison of the USACE to find out some factual information on what is going on. We had a good talk.
The Generation dam is undergoing some subcontracted rehab work to the penstock and therefore cannot release water through the turbines. This work is contracted for the next 30-45 days until they finish the work.
The Corps hope is to have multiple and frequent low volume releases through the spillway dam so as not to cause any significant damage.
The flow with both gates open as you saw in the pictures is 1060cfs and they are trying to keep the releases under 1100cfs.
They will be closing one gate today at 4:00 pm through Sunday at around 10 pm. This is going to lower the spillway flow to 630cfs, hopefully providing some comparable relief to visitors over the weekend.
Then they will be opening the second gate back up due to the rain event expected over the next couple of days.
Their aim is to keep the lake at full pool, 599.5 ft. This will all be up to Mother Nature. If there are no rain events in the next month then the gates will close, naturally.
I did not get into the lack of proper warnings with him. He's getting that from plenty of other people who are in a more appropriate position to do that. Hopefully a better job of that will be done from here on out.
Fishing is still on. It's just going to take a different strategy and a little thinking.

Good luck to everyone,

Patrick Waters

I don't know how they state that is fishable.

Maybe with a surf rod, 2oz lead weight, and 100 lb braided line so you can rip your fly out of the bushes.

I don't trust the COE. They know how to ruin things IMO.

I bet the Kayaking is legit though!!

I bet the Kayaking is legit though!! eeks

Might make shooting the tube AKA "Cold Hole Bridge" exciting...

d

If they keep the flow fairly consistent, allowing new beds to be scoured out and fhe fish a chance to settle in them, in a couple of weeks I should think that BB might be kind of interesting to fish. After all, non-tailwaters that hold trout have an event similar to this, naturally, most every year due to run-off or thaw. The trout in those waters, even the stockers, don't seem to freak out and run away to the sea or anything. I imagine that once they locate a good holding area they stert looking around for worms and other terrestrials to munch on. If I did't have a busted foot right now I'd be planning a trip just to see how I could do.

From past experiences it makes Spin fishing fantastic, off colored water, a fish behind every rock and they have to react to anything coming by.

The Bad, those fish are hard to keep hooked but make the fight 10X more exciting.

D