East Carson Drift?

[sierraangler]

Anyone know what the lowest flows are that you can drift the East Carson with a 14' raft? Looking at possibly this weekend but wondering if I've already missed the window with flows in the 300-400's. I bet it is fishing well... any reports?



http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ca/nwis/uv...cd=00065,00060

[Fly Guy Dave]

The tough thing about the EC is when the flows are high enough to float, the water is often the color of chocolate milk, making any fishing difficult, if not impossible. Conversely, when the flows are low enough for the water to clear and easily wet a line, any kind of float would turn into a long and grueling portage-fest.

[JasonB]

First off, take this with a grain of salt as I have not yet floated that stretch. I do know that some of the commercial raft trips consider aprox 800cfs to be minimal. My wife (who has rowed it a few times in 14' rafts) thought that we could likely do it at about 600-650cfs in a small (10.5'-12') raft. As far as what's "minimum", I suppose that depends on how much you care to drag your boat along... but I would hazard a guess that 300-400cfs would be so low that the 14' raft would turn in to far more of a hinderance than an asset. An IK maybe???
JB