Quote Originally Posted by Jcolin View Post
Yeah its 150 cfs measured on the south fork, and the sonoma hotline even though the rivers in both counties. The rest of the mendo streams with the mendo hotline are based on the navarro gauge, its 200 or above if i remember right. Like Bill and others said, can be very hard to judge the drop on these rivers. I remember last year after the first big storm i drove up the coast to fish the gualala, flows seemed perfect at 300 or so after they dropped overnight but river was chocolate milk, from all the sediment from the first storm. Later on it gets more predictable
This has been my experience too on the north coast streams (except the Smith!) too. Most of the streams have such a sediment load that it can take quite a bit to flush some of it out, of course sometimes the big flows come with storms that cause additional landslides that add a bunch more mud. It is tricky to get it all right, but it sure can be sweet when it comes together.