Changes, Keep On Changin', And The Good Old Days, They Say They're Gone - - -

 

Would like to jump into the issues raised by AC who was born and raised on the river and knows more about the river than I could ever hope to. 

Many changes came with the building of the Cannonsville dam. The dam has reduced flooding by taking the WB water out of play during heavy rains, except when the reservoir is full. By reducing the flood flows from the WB, there has been a greater opportunity for silt from the tribs to build up in the river, (the WB silt is sitting on the bottom of the reservoir and what will happen to that, I don't need to worry about in my lifetime).

 When I first started fishing here I got into the muck at the mud flats just above Balls Eddy and didn't know if my waders and I would make it out. When the three floods, (one 500 year, two 100 year), came just after the turn of the century, the mud flats were gone, so were all the burrowing insects. The floods changed the river bottom. Tens of Thousands of tons of stones and gravel were redistributed. Everyone had to learn a new river, flat ledge rock was scoured of stones, gravel bars appeared where deep pools existed, riffs were moved downstream and, the mud was gone. So were the silt dwelling mayflies. I'm happy to say that the after twenty years, almost all the silt dwelling bugs, (that can survive in cold release water) are back. Brown drakes, that love to molt on my cedar shingles, were the last returnees and they showed up on the fishing camp in numbers, about five years ago.

Which brings me to a discussion of the WB bugs. If you've fished the upper WB in the last few day and experienced the Apple caddis blizzard (and there is no other word for it), you know the good news. The  elimination of the draconian low flows (10cfs to 45cfs in the winter), which dewatered much of the upper WB stream bed, allowed the caddis population to explode, that's the good news.

The bad news is the effect increased release flows of cold water from Cannonsville have had on the native may fly population in the WB. Met an entomologist who works on trout streams in Tasmania (not a word of a lie) and he patiently explained to me why the native bugs were in the process of disappearing from the WB. In two words, Degree Days.

Degree days are a way of measuring how hot or cold it is over a period of time. It enables our fuel oil provider to know when to come fill our tank. Each species of mayfly needs a certain number of degree days to mature, hatch, mate, lay eggs and perpetuate the species. Some do better in warmer water, Ephron's, Tricos, March Browns, Gray Foxes, Invaria (spring sulfurs), and Green and Brown Drakes, to name a few. Some do ok in cold water,  paraleps and Hendricksons.

It's a sneaky thing, cold water doesn't kill the nymphs, it just keeps fewer and fewer of them from maturing so they never hatch and mate. The numbers are reduced gradually so most fishermen don't even notice. Many fishermen haven't ever seen these bugs in the WB, but most existed in the WB when I started fishing here. 

The increased volume of water created by the increased flows has enabled a far larger number of fish to populate the river system. The loss of many of the native mayflies is one of the prices we are paying.

Tomorrow I'll recap the weeks fishing. If you are here, or on the way, fish above barking dog take out, bring Hendricksons, large olives, and Apple Caddis, it's on fire!