Spring floods

[-ecc]

The Ashokan Reservoir and Esopus Creek are way past flood stage here in the Catskills. They are pretty much raging torrents.
How are things up in the Adk's? Is ice out on the Great Sacandaga? How about the branches of the Sacandaga River? Are they open water or are there ice jams? Curious and a little worried.
ecc

[lumberzac]

According to my cousin who lives on the lake, there is still a lot of ice on the Great Sacandaga, but the lake level has come up quite a bit over the past week.

[starbaby]

I just drove by the Great Sac. today. With the last two days of rain, the ice is in royal bad shape. It is now largely covered with a layer of fresh rain water and the ice at the perimeter is severely buckled and broken. Driving up the Sacandaga River, I saw no ice dams. The ice is completely out on the river. The water level is very high. Just two days ago, it still looked pretty solid. At this rate, there will not be much left by next weekend.

I also drove on route 10 north of Good Luck Lake and the west branch of the Sac. there (which appears during the summer months as a 6 foot wide channel meandering through a wetland) has filled the entire lowland and become a gigantic lake on both sides of the road. The water was actually on the road in one section and within a few inches of engulfing the road from both sides.

Here is a link to a USGS site that gives the real time water levels for any creek that the USGS has a guage on. You can see the guage that is near the town of Hope marked. You just click on the little dot and you get an up-to-date plot of the water level there.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ny/nwis/rt

These graphs seem to indicate that the water levels have crested and are now receeding.

SB

[-ecc]

Thanks to all for the info. Very useful website, SB.
ecc

[jpm8920]

I was in the Catskills this weekend, and almost all of the rivers are above flood stage. The east branch of the delaware flooded the town of Margaretville, where my place is, completely. The middle of town is hurtin from this. Some businesses were washed out. Same thing with a lot of the towns around the esopus.

Do the trout stay in these waters when the rivers are raging like this, or do they get washed down into the reservoir?

[serotonin]

Do the trout stay in these waters when the rivers are raging like this, or do they get washed down into the reservoir?

The trout are pretty creative in finding places to shield themselves from the torrents; usually behind boulders and snags, or in deep depressions (water velocity is of lesser magnitude near the stream bed, due to friction). Some of the best places are in newly created back eddies, on what was once dry land. They usually don't have to travel far to find a good lie. They will even continue to feed; many insects get dislodged, baitfish get stunned by high waters, and worms are washed into the streams (goodies on the table w/the flavor on the label, drowning in miracle sauce).

Generally, the greatest amount of movement occurs during spawning, not flooding. Rainbows have been known to do the most traveling, even under ideal conditions. Brown trout generally move around less, except at night, when they go hunting.

Drought conditions and high temperatures are far less less kind to trout.

[marzrw]

Sero,
How do you know so much for such a young lad? From reading, observation, or what? It appears your stream never gets depleted either from fishermen or nature. One heckuva stream, for sure. By the way, Chelsea is sleeping beside me as I write this and her legs are twitching old dog as she is, probably dreaming about the hikes we used to take, like you and Daisy fishing together. At least she is young in mind. Anyways, I hope the smart trout know what to do when the water rises. Out on the Salmon River years ago in one of the tackle stores, a guy told a story nof high water fishing conditions. He said the 'sportsmen' were fishing out in the normal, routine areas, and he was fishing behind them and caught steelhead right behind them, so yes, trout should know what to do do when the water rises, as you said.