Lake Powell predictions?

[HATH]

Hey guys I was wondering what you think about the following questions:

Once Hite fills back up with water (who knows when that'll be), how long after that do you think it would take for fish to find their way back up to the backs of all of those little canyons? I love hite the most, but I'm afraid it'll be years and years before it'll be fishable again.

Also, given the current situation of Hite, are the fish more concentrated in areas like Good Hope Bay, or the Horn...wherever the receded water line is?

If the drought continues as it did last year, which ramps would be the first to close?

Any predictions on the fishing for large mouth, small mouth, and crappie in the spring? I'm thinking it'll be similar to last year, with the absence of weeds and cover, the fishing will be a little more challenging than in years past.
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[fish_or_die]

Per wayne's predictions:

2014 should be a good year for smallmouth and healthy mid-teen stripers.

Isolated spots like good hope bay should hold excellent numbers of walleye.

Largemouth will be in decline again this year with a lack of good spawning the last couple years and will remain in decline until the water covers enough brush for them to have adequate habitat.

The fish never left the Hite area, they just moved around a bit. Once good cover and water conditions return for any respective species the fish will quickly return. If the water isn't higher than last year, it'll definitely be primitive launching only on the north end of the lake, BF and Wahweap will remain open though.

The fish will still be there though and they gotta eat! Fishing has the potential to be superb this spring if you are willing to adapt to the current conditions! Do the same thing you did five years ago in your same old spots and you might not agree.
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[Therapist]

The fish are still there and will fill the available niche as the water comes up, so fishing at Hite will be good as the water rises. As to your other questions, The lake will really have to go WAY down to see any ramp closures. Bullfrog has been extended as has the main ramp at Wahweep. There may be some secondary closures, but you can check Waynes Words for current ramp conditons.

As to fishing, depends on lake level for LMB and crappie. If there is lots of flooded brush, great fishing, if not, marginal for them. Stripers , SMB, and Walleye should be great again this year.

[HATH]

Where'd you find that? I never did run into that post on wayneswords.com.

I thought that it's just a river going through the hite area, that would mean the canyons are empty, how would the fish still be there?
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[MasterDaad]

I think the fish will find filling areas almost instantly.

According to this website, the primary Lake Powell watershed is at 95% of normal for this time of year... but the most the water actually comes later in the Winter and early spring.... so too early to tell what will happen.

http://snowpack.water-data.com/uppercolo...p?getall=1

The Lake was actually 20' lower on this date in 2005 (3563 vs 3583 today).
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[fish_or_die]

http://wayneswords.com/index.php?option=...&Itemid=29

Hite itself may only be a river, but the further you get downstream it will spread out into the canyons of White, trachyte and others. Like was said, as water levels rise the fishing will get better upstream while fishing down around GHB will be stellar for sure.
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[catmaster23]

I'm going at the end of May so I'll tell you then[]
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[PBH]

[quote HATH]

I thought that it's just a river going through the hite area, that would mean the canyons are empty, how would the fish still be there?[/quote]

Right now the lake begins at the mouth of White and Farley Canyons. Farley can be tricky to boat into -- the river is building a nice sandbar at the entrance of this canyon. If continued low water levels remain, then at some point Farley Canyon will be cut off from the main lake. I guess that White Canyon could possibly face the same fate if levels remain low. We boated into White Canyon in November 2013 -- but you have to push through the debris field from the inflowing Colorado River.

Fishing was amazing between the mouth of the river (White / Farley canyon mouths) and Trachyte Canyon. There are lots, and lots, and lots of healthy stripers up there. As water levels rise, the fish will simply fill in the newly flooded areas. It won't take any time at all for the fish to fill that water. Fish finding water isn't the issue. The only issue is whether the water will ever find Hite again or not!

Here are a couple pics from this area in November 2013.

mouth of Colorado, to the left (west) of Farley Canyon:


Farley Canyon mouth:


Panorama:

If you go look at Google Earth, you will get a good idea of the lake level up at the Hite end. The Google Earth image is from June -- so, looking at the picture, just bring the lake level down a little closer to the mouth of Farley, and you can see what you have currently.
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[castnshoot]

Should we start releasing Colorado River water to Mexico?

All water in a given system being fungible, how might this effect Lake Powell as a fishery which is already down out of the brush?

http://news.yahoo.com/man-made-flood-cou...00337.html
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[PBH]

low water certainly affects some species more than others. Especially when you get to a point that there is no longer any submerged brush. So, species like crappie really struggle -- I think they're already in a bad place. It could take years for them to ever recover. Other species like large mouth bass also struggle without brush. Small mouth like rocky areas better -- so they won't get hit as hard. Stripers don't need the brush either.

The real key for sportfishing at Powell is the shad. In the past when the striper populations have boomed -- like they did in 2013 -- they have completely wiped out the threadfin shad. Once they wiped out the threadfin's, there was nothing left for the stripers (or other predators) to prey on. So, they starved. They stack up at the canyons and get caught by the hundreds by anchovy fishermen. While this is mucho fun, it isn't ideal for a population of fish. They starve. They die. They crash. Then it takes years for them to recover.

However, things have changed some. We now have a firmly established population of adult gizzard shad. How does this help? Well, adult gizzard shad get big -- over 20". Adult threadfin stay small ( 5 inches?). So, while the threadfin may get wiped out due to predation, the gizzards will still have some adults left over to continue to spawn and procreate. We should have additional shad for forage every year. So the boom and bust peaks and valleys should hopefully become less steep -- shorter recovery times and fewer busts.

My prediction for 2014? Lot's of medium sized stripers (up to 16") that are fat and healthy. They anchovy fishing crowd will be disappointed because those healthy stripers won't be taking bait like they did in 2013. The trollers and boil chasers will have a ball getting into schools of aggressive healthy stripers.

I think we'll see few 18 - 24" schools of stripers. Crappie will be few and far between. Walleye will be good up at the north end of the lake.

I can't wait for March.
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[Flyfishinglover]

We got one more dry season so by 2016 or 2017 the lake show be filled up too a decent level. Gotta love the 4 dry year and 4 flood year cycle.
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[Therapist]

PBH made some very good points. When you have a resource like Powell and a information outlet like Wayne ( [url "http://www.wayneswords.com"][/url]www.wayneswords.com[/url]) it is hard to look anywhere else. If you go to his website and look on the left and right margins, you will see links for ramp conditions, techniques, etc. If people really looked at his website, I doubt that you would find anything as comprehensive on a single body of water any where else. I am concerned what is going to happen to it when he retires, Wayne is not a spring chicken any more, almost as old as TD and me. So spend some time going over the site and see what resources it provides.

[riverdog]

34 billion gallons is a lot of water but Lake Powell alone has 3.32 trillion gallon today. So it's 1% of Lake Powell currently or about 0.4% at full pool. The release is every 5 years so even it it all came out of Powell it's be about 0.08 % of full pool- not sure how many inches of water it'd be but not probable not noticeable.
Hopefully will get some good water years but someone mentioned a made up 4 year water cycle. When was the last time we had 2 normal above water years in this state? The problem is partly longer term data suggest the Colorado River system dams were built during a time of above average precipitation. Even if long term climate doesn't effect precipitation upstream of Powell and the other dams, they aren't likely to be near full pool after run off very many years.
The water isn't all that fungible, http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g1000/lawofrvr.html within the Colorado or the State of Utah. Utah only has 2 places where you can claim water rights left. The rest has to be purchased. Since it looks like the pipeline from Lake Powell to St. George isn't going to be built anytime soon I'm planning to file for 4 parcels of land that I have that happen to be the extremely few private properties you can do this in the state. Just have to figure out how to develop the water rights within 5 years to keep it. I'm sure St George will come knocking for water one day.
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[HATH]

I'm on that website quite a bit but I've found it doesn't have near as much traffic as BFT. Plus I'm not looking for current conditions as much as wondering what people think of the up coming season.
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[Therapist]

Go to Fishing report and click on "Gill Netting Results". Everything about the coming year from the man !! Ramp information will be found on the left margin " Launch Ramps". Traffic is not as great now as most people hit Powell in the summer, but the regulars are on there all the time. There is a current report and pics from Goldcup and his crowd that are at Bullfrog almost every weekend. Also Ron Colby and Marty Peterson. More information than you can use !!

PBH - Why are you waiting till March ???

[PBH]

[quote Therapist]

PBH - Why are you waiting till March ???[/quote]

Because trout need attention too!

so many fish to catch. so little time to catch them all...
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[Therapist]

So true, So true !!!