Feather River Flow Jump

[Tony Buzolich]

I just checked the flow on the Feather and it has jumped to almost 5600cfs at Gridley. For the last few weeks it has been around 2300cfs which is slightly high but nothing like this.
The only explanation I heard is that Oroville Lake is full to capacity. With no more room for this run-off they're having to open the gates. If it get really serious they'll open the gates in the lowflow as well.

I also checked the Sac flow and it seems to have lowered. Maybe they don't want to flood Sacramento and the delta with a combined flow.
TONY

[Tracy Chimenti]

Too bad. My buddy and I spent the night on the River last week and were surprised to see that last downpour raised the thing 2-feet and muddied it up too. We managed a some dinks, catfish and one good sized striper in the early blue hours. We were planning on another overnighter on the full moon when the river would hopefully lower and clear.

By the way, twas I that went around you at the mouth of the Yuba last week during your flurry. We were on the Yuba for shad. There was some spawning going on there as well.

Keep it up,

Tracy

[Tony Buzolich]

Tracy, the next time you go by stop and say "HI".
TONY

[Tracy Chimenti]

Choogawtit, bro.

[Tracy Chimenti]

Actually, I didn't want to spook your fish, so I took the long way around.

Tracy

[AmericanRiverSteelies]

I'm planning on trying the Feather this Saturday for salmon on the swing. It appears that the flow is back down to roughly 2300 cfs. I'm new to this so could you tell me if that is even remotely safe to wade into?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Big flow should bring a lot of salmon up the river to the Oroville area.

Maybe we have salt water intrusion in the Delta? Don't want to pump any salt water to southern Cal folks.

During last drought they said all of our Nor Cal reservoirs were empty while the SoCal reservoirs were full.

[dude02]

The original thread is from 2005. No spike in flows that I am aware of. They have been on the drop all through July. Just so people don't get confused.

There will be somebody here that can answer your question hopefully.

[AmericanRiverSteelies]

Understood. But I got the current flow info from the CDEC website and need an answer.
Thanks for the clarification, just the same.

[Darian]

Hmmm,.... The main page for scheduled releases from Oroville on CDEC shows 2300 cfs release as of 7/29/14. However, if you check the daily report info for the month of July, it shows substantially different "outflow" info:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryDaily?s=ORO&d=31-Jul-2014+21:59

Don't know which is correct. At any rate, your original question: my experience with the Feather below the outlet is that there're places where you can safely wade at 2,300 cfs. Check out the area around Palm Ave (up/downstream) and there's always the low flow section....