Flooded Rivers

The USGS stream gauge date map shows black and blue dots all over Southern Appalachia (and across much of the South, East Coast and Upper Midwest, for that matter). The dots mark locations of stream gauges. Blue suggests very high flows. Black is even higher.

The rain of late has been crazy. It has actually been seriously rainy around here since mid-fall, so our streams were already running at high levels. For the past couple of weeks, though, the clouds have turned it up a notch, and it has been coming down, coming down, and coming down some more. Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours with a shop vacuum sucking water from the basement area where I keep all my fishing junk, and it looks like I might be doing the same thing again in a few days.

I actually like rainy days, and I really like trout fishing with dark skies and high flows. Brown trout feed best when the skies are extra dark, and most trout position themselves more predictably and become a bit less skittish when flows are high and the water gets a little off colored. The same conditions also tend to lessen crowds, which certainly suits me.

High water has useful limits for fishing, though, and most of are streams are well past those. They are running so hard that most fish are hiding behind rocks on the bottom and are essentially in hang-on-for-life mode. Most streams will have to settle at least a bit before fishing is likely to be good. When that happens, though, it should be really good, with better than normal big-fish potential.

For today, I think my best bet is to do a bit more drying and some sorting in my basement. Getting stuff in better order will let me get on the water faster on those days that will be coming up soon when river conditions are more conducive to good fishing.

Thursday Tips: Go With the Flow

North Georgia streams still rocking along at high levels from recent rains, with more rain is in today's forecast. Therefore, it seems fitting to consider the importance of water levels for developing stream strategies.

Water levels obviously dictate important things about river access. If many rivers are too high or too low you can't reasonably wade or float them, and there are times after storms when flood-level flows clearly blow out any reasonable opportunities for fishing. Even if you remove the extremes from the equation and assume you can fish, though, looking at the level of a given stream and comparing it to recent days and to historical norms can tell you a lot about the strategies that are likely to produce.

High water, generally speaking, positions trout, smallmouths and other stream fish in hard eddies out of the strongest flow, whether those eddies are formed by boulders, drops, cuts in the bank or other features. Runs that are somewhat swift at normal levels and that typically hold feeding fish are likely to be too pushy for the fish or for good presentations and not worth your time. Good spots are sometimes tough to reach during high flows and making good presentations can be challenging. However, the fish tend to be ambush mode and willing to bite. Because fish get aggressive and feed opportunistically on stuff that gets swept past, bigger baits, brighter colors and added flash all come into play.

Extreme low flows call for totally different strategies, but that's another tip for another time.

If you want to check stream flows while you're still at home and gathering gear. The USGS current streamflow map is a tremendously valuable resource.