Autumn On The EB

Autumn On The EB

Monday, June 17, 2013

After The Flood - It's the Swift (Of Course)


A fellow named Brad sent me a photo of the Millers looking downstream at the Kempfield section while the flow was at 3700cfs!!!!!!! That was on June 13 and it's now down below 2000cfs which is in the right direction but still too high to do anything but kayaking. Let's give this river a dry week and then see what happens.

The Swift - It has been sublime even with it being the only major river that has been fishable over the weekend. The flow was in the 55cfs range which REALLY brought out the crowd at the Y Pool. I found an isolated spot or two and had wonderful fishing over a steady sulphur hatch. There are a few species that we now label as sulphurs. Basically any mayfly that's yellow or cream. Ephemerella Invaria and Ephemerella Dorothea are the species that we generally call "sulphurs" but now the cream cahill, a steady summer hatch on the Swift, is lumped into the sulphur group. I usually don't care too much because my flies are generic enough to represent a number of insects. What I care about is whether the trout like them and they do.

The EB - Checking the online gauge is misleading for this river. When we get pounded with rain the dam will hold back water and then release it when the downstream flood threat ends. The flow gauge is situated just downstream from the dam. The flow will look outrageous at that spot but the flow miles upstream in the Gorge may be hundreds of cfs lower. That was the case this afternoon when I drove to the Gorge to check it out. I would say the flow was somewhere around 800. Of course when I was there the skies opened up with a heavy downpour and we are supposed to have more storms tonight. I'll keep an eye on this river but my guess is that we will have good flows by Thursday.

I was reading a few posts of mine from June and July of 2009 just to recount the flooding of that year. The Swift ran over 500 cfs in July after running in the 50-60cfs range in June. Will 2013 be a repeat of 2009?? Hope not!!

Ken

4 comments:

Millers River Flyfisher said...

Here's an EB update: the flow dropped below 600 (596)cfs at the gauge as of 6am today. The flow in the Gorge will be ok. Time to fish the EB.

Ken

Anonymous said...

Hey! New picture for the header.

Al

Tom said...

Fished the EB Friday night and Saturday, great fishing to be had. No one around Friday night, had the Bliss pool to myself and 1/2 dozen fish to the net. I went to the southern section just north of the knightville dam where I drove as far north along the gravel road before you hit the gate. Didnt have much luck there but didnt stay long, tall grass made access difficult. Anyone have any tips/suggestions for fishing this area, is it worth it?

Millers River Flyfisher said...

Tom,

Can't say that I know anything about that area. Maybe someone does.

Ken