American River Flow to drop...again

[Terry Thomas]

They have scheduled a drop in the American River flow again back to 1,000 cfs on the 22nd, Tuesday. Low flows at the start of the shad season have never been good for the fly fishing. Sure hope we have enough water in storage for them to save the fisheries throughout the year.
T.

[mike N]

I think I would rather have lower flows than higher flows for shad. It seems to have been higher flows the last few years.

MN

[Terry Thomas]

The low flows might be good when the fish are "in" the river. My point is that these low flows will not bring the shad into the river. We shall see.
T.

[lee s.]

Wouldn't lower flows created higher water temps? And aren't higher water temps, to some degree, attractive to the shad?
....lee s.

[Terry Thomas]

From my experience, when the flows are low in the American, Feather, and Yuba, the shad head up the Sac. Our best years have been when we have had really heavy Spring time flows @8,000 cfs and then the flow were reduced to @2,000 cfs. This same occurrence happens on the Yuba. When the flows are really high early in the season it "draws" a lot of fish up the river. Last year when the flow were super low on the Yuba we had a very poor year on the shad.ccurance

[Jeff C.]

Three years ago I caught 25 shad one evening when the flow was 25K on the A. The high flow made them shoot up river and they were hugging the slower current right next to the bank. This year I expect the Log Hole to be good because with the low flows they will hold longer in the lower river. I saw a gear guy heading out to try for them when I was leaving yesterday afternoon. I think he was a little too optimistic. I didn't get anything but saw a guy with his two boys hook himself in the forearm with a big treble hooked lure. I tried to help using the mono tied to the bend of the hook trick but the barb was too big to back the hook out. I left with him getting out his pocket knife to do some surgery on himself. I guess he was a Boy Scouts troop leader and was telling his boys that this was good training for the Scouts. Jeff C.

[Jeff C.]

Three years ago I caught 25 shad one evening when the flow was 25K on the A. The high flow made them shoot up river and they were hugging the slower current right next to the bank. This year I expect the Log Hole to be good because with the low flows they will hold longer in the lower river. I saw a gear guy heading out to try for them when I was leaving yesterday afternoon. I think he was a little too optimistic. I didn't get anything but saw a guy with his two boys hook himself in the forearm with a big treble hooked lure. I tried to help using the mono tied to the bend of the hook trick but the barb was too big to back the hook out. I left with him getting out his pocket knife to do some surgery on himself. I guess he was a Boy Scouts troop leader and was telling his boys that this was good training for the Scouts. Jeff C.

[OceanSunfish]

From my experience, when the flows are low in the American, Feather, and Yuba, the shad head up the Sac. Our best years have been when we have had really heavy Spring time flows @8,000 cfs and then the flow were reduced to @2,000 cfs. This same occurrence happens on the Yuba. When the flows are really high early in the season it "draws" a lot of fish up the river. Last year when the flow were super low on the Yuba we had a very poor year on the shad.ccurance

I've got to agree with Terry.

According to my logs, the best years have been normal runoff where river flows were 4K to 8K early, then dropped to 2K to 3K by June 1st. Shad and anglers would be dispersed throughout the river by then and the 'healthy' flows in June allowed the fishing to be consistently good right through the 4th of July.

You would think that with the dams and the ability to consistently control flows year-in and year-out, the shad fishery would be a perfect 'tailwater' or below dam fishery. It just goes to show that the 'control valves' are handled by politically backed water grabbers and their complete disregard to anybody else's interests but their own.