dgames

fly fishing knots I use If my fly line doesn't have a welded loop, I use a nail not to connect a short piece of amnesia to the fly line and then tie a small perfection loop in amnesia about 4"- 6" from the nail knot. Perfection loop in the butt section of the leader. Connect to the loop in my fly line or amnesia with a simple loop to loop connection. Use double surgeons knot to tie together two pieces of leader material. I try to stay within 2x on the diameters I am tying together (i.e. 3x connect no thinner than 5x) Use Davy knot to connect tippet to fly. I will occasionally use a blood knot to repair the butt section of a leader if I have a bunch of stuff rigged up already on the leader and don't want to pull that stuff through the loop in tying a double surgeons. If you go to youtube, you can easily find videos on how to tie all of these knots.

Ended up being a pretty successful outing. We had about 30 people show up. After a little over an hour, trash had been picked pretty clean. Ended up filling the bed on one of the ODWC pickup trucks with trash. For fishing, they kept the water off until about 3:30, so had a fair amount of time to fish after the trash pickup. Pretty much everyone I talked with caught fish. I got to fish a while late morning with Daddy-O and we both caught fish at the pool above the rock weir downstream of the gravel lot. We both caught a number of fish before breaking for lunch. Lunch was chili at the Watts parking lot make by one of the OKC guys. A fter lunch, Phil fished watts and I went back up to the gravel lot and did really well back in that same hole. Ended up messing around trying different flies after a while and everything I threw seemed to work.

The OKC and Tulsa Trout Unlimited Chapters work together twice a year to have a stream cleanup on the Lower Illinois river. We are having one tomorrow morning December 5 - meeting at 9am at the dam parking lot. We usually work with the corps of engineers on these to schedule low water. They are showing this window of low water on the schedule tomorrow. This may be the last shot of low water for a while on the LI with all the rain we have had. Meet us at the dam at 9am and help pick up trash for an hour or two. After that, fish the low water and stop by for a chili lunch at noonish at the Watts parking lot. Hope to see some of you there.

Is anyone familiar with trout fishing at Blanchard Springs? I have a friend that will be in the area later this month and asked me if I knew anything about it as a trout fishery. Are there trout in the creek or just the lake? Is it worth fishing? From the usda website, it says the following Lake and Pond Fishing Two historic dams enclose the waters of Blanchard Springs, forming Mirror Lake.The lake is stocked with rainbow trout. Arkansas Game and Fish regulations apply. Accessible parking lot, boardwalk, and fishing pier. River and Stream Fishing Clear North Sylamore Creek runs through the Blanchard Recreation Area, and offers some good fishing holes either upstream or downstream from the swim areas.

I think you can wade all the way down to the bridge at the town of Navajo Dam. Beatis Bend is the furthest downstream I have fished in my trips the last couple years. Back in the 90s I took a guided drift boat trip and the take out was a ways downstream from there, but I don't remember a whole lot about that water. Doing the half day guided trip is a good plan. We went with Roger Hibner out of Abes two years ago on our first full day and enjoyed fishing with him. Last year he was working at the shop instead of guiding most of the week and he ended up coming out and fishing with us for a couple hours one day. That was fun. I have also heard good things about Aaron Carithers at Anasazi Anglers.

To expand on the San Juan commentary, one of the things that I think is cool about the river is the diversity of the type of water you can find. Lots of places to dredge nymphs in riffle water with nice little deep cuts where you are pretty much just reading the water to find fish. If you get tired of doing that, there are usually plenty of places where you can wander flats looking for visible fish and sight fishing to risers of fish visibly feeding on nymphs. Sick of seeing other people, go explore some of the vast backwater and side channel areas where you will have to stalk spooky fish.

I love the San Juan. Spent a week there last fall and the year before. As others have said, there will be other people, but it is so vast of an area, that you can always find a spot to fish. My favorite areas are the upper flats and cable area, beatis bend/lunker alley and the lower flats. The Texas hole and Kiddie pool area can be fun, but it is a little more like fishing one of the trout parks that some of the other areas. Be prepared with small stuff - size 22 and 24 midge nymphs. Buy some size 24 adams parachutes and size 24 fore and aft dries at one of the fly shops there (Abes, Fishheads and a third one I can't remember name of just up the hill from fishheads) unless you are a good enough tyer to tie hackled flies that small. I would also have some 18 or 16 hi-viz griffiths gnats. I spent a lot of time fishing to rising fish with one of the 24 dries droppered off the griffiths gnat Watch the gnat and set the hook if you seen a rise next to it. You will also get some fish on the gnat. My biggest fish last fall was a 20"er on the gnat. I also did some fishing with a big (size 12) stimulator with a midge larva dropped off it. Size of the larva are too small for tungsten bh, so I did not bead head and used a small split shot. Most of the fish will be caught on the dropper, but you will pick up occasional fish on the stimulator and usually they will be big ones. For midge patterns, I did well with dorsey's mercury black beauty midges in black or gray. Have fun if you go. I will probably spend a week out there again this fall.

I did end up fishing 3 mornings (6/29,30 and 7/1) with my brother in law. My daughters boyfriend came with us one morning and my sister came with us the last morning. Spent most of the first 2 days trolling the area marked on the map above. Only caught a few <12" smallmouth. Picked up 2 or 3 of these by the shallow water by the dam campground area. The third day, we went around the corner from the trolling area marked above to the channel by the big island. Fished the cove with the tiny island at its entrance. We found what looked like a lot of fish in that cove on my cheap locator and did end up hooking a few white bass. As luck would have it, my sister caught the biggest fish of the trip which was about a pound and half white bass. Thanks again for the help.

Went last Saturday. The Tulsa and OKC TU chapters held a river cleanup in the morning and then we fished in the afternoon. Water was very low and extremely clear. Caught some but had to work pretty hard for them. Caught mine on bead head midges fished about 15" below a dry fly indicator. I think the dry fly indicators work well in these low and clear conditions as I think the dry is less likely to spook fish than a conventional indicator.

Wow, thanks everyone for the replies.

Spending a few days on Beaver next week. Staying at a house in Lost Bridge Village and keeping my boat at Lost Bridge marina. My boat is not a fishing boat. It is a 21 IB/OB runabout and we will mainly be pleasure boating, pulling the kids on wakeboard and tube. I would be interested in doing a little fishing in the early morning or early evening if there was something that was relatively easy to do that I could pull off with by non-fishing boat. I am mainly fly fish for trout, so I am not a really good at lake fishing, but like to do it when I can. I have had some success trolling with this boat in the past for sand bass in Oklahoma lakes. It does have a cheap Eagle locator on it, so I can at least tell a little bit about the water depth and some structure. I read about F&F's report of trolling flicker shad. Is that more appropriate in the upper end of the lake where it is shallower. I know the main lake is really deep down where we are staying. Should I be seeking out the creek arms like the Clifty branches or Indian Creek to find shallower water? Looking for a little advice and don't really care that much what we catch. Just something that a relatively inexperienced lake fisherman could pull off. By the way, I plan to be courteous of fishermen when we are pleasure boating during the day.

I caught a few hours of low water sunday morning and did well at Watts using my favorite yellow/midgeflash midge.

That is pretty cool.

The LI fishes well as the water is falling. The added current definitely helps. If you get there right when they stop, you might want to start at the dam of the gravel lot if you don't want to wait for the water to start falling at Watts.

Water had definitely cleared. Had been there the previous sunday as well and there was a noticeable difference in clarity. Also, the fish seemed more congregated than usual. Usually you can go just about anywhere at Watts or the dam area and catch fish. Saturday, I started at the bottom end of the rip-rap bank at watts and it was really slow in an area that usually is productive. Moved downstream and stopped in the riffle just below and fish were absolutely stacked in there. Caught fish pretty much non-stop for an hour or so in a pretty small area. Broke for the lunch we were having at our outing. After lunch went further downstream. Again, slow fishing for a while until I found a concentration of fish and then caught a bunch in one spot.

Was there yesterday at Watts. Water has cleared up. Fishing was good.

I fished at the access downstream from Marval a couple of week s ago. Nice water down there, but the trout certainly aren't as plentiful as further upstream. I did catch several, but was definitely more challenging than closer to the dam,

There are There seem to be plenty of fish in the river. Fished it Wednesday morning before the ceremony and again saturday afternoon after the stream cleanup and caught plenty including several over 15".

Thanks. To put credit where it belongs within TU, our previous president Scott Hood is the guy that really worked hard to make this happen. We also had a bunch of people write letters and we have been told that made a big difference.

The Tulsa TU Chapter and the OKC Chapter are jointly holding our annual lower Illinois River stream cleanup this weekend. We would love all the help we can get. We are meeting at the dam parking lot at 8am to distribute trash bags. From there, people will go to the various access points to pick up trash. We plan to work until a little before 11am. At 11, we will have a cookout at the Watts access with the club providing burgers and hot dogs and attendees bringing side dishes. I think we will be providing water as well at the cookout In the afternoon we will fish and the generators are supposed to be off until at least 3pm. Would love to see some of the OAF folks there.

Here is a link to a news story http://www.newson6.com/story/22637912/corps-of-engineers Low Flow Pipe Outlet Water source for low flow pipe DO system

I was one of about 10 people from the Tulsa TU chapter that went to a ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday to celebrate work that was done at Tenkiller Dam to try to avoid more fish kills like we had 2 years ago. The following is a write-up I received from the Corps describing the project. I am proud to say that our TU Chapter played a significant role in making this happen I thought people here would be interested. I will try to post some pics as well if I can get the file size reduced enough. Tenkiller Lake Downstream Trout Fisheries Background Tenkiller Lake was congressionally authorized for flood control, water supply, hydropower, recreation, and fish and wildlife in 1938. The normal pool – the conservation pool – includes storage for water supply and for hydropower. All of Tenkiller Lake’s water supply storage has been contracted for and committed to various municipal and industrial water users, including communities, rural water districts, and others. In addition, Southwestern Power Administration utilizes the hydropower storage for hydropower generation. There is no storage allocated for the project purpose of recreation and fish and wildlife. During the summer 2011 drought, low dissolved oxygen levels and high water temperatures resulted in a fish kill of both non-native trout and native species of fish. Should similar conditions occur, it could cause another fish kill further adversely impacting the popular trout fishery below Tenkiller dam. Some releases from the dam are controlled by sluice gates. The seals on those gates deteriorated over time, causing leakage downstream. This provided a fresh flow of water that benefitted the dissolved oxygen levels, however, that leak was repaired in 2010. Although one of the congressionally-authorized purposes of Tenkiller Lake is for fish and wildlife, there is no water allocated in the lake for that purpose and all water storage is contracted to other users. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife and Conservation relies on limited donated storage to release water for the fishery. Donated water of a little more than 12,000 cubic acres from Sequoyah County Fuels’ water supply allocation allowed ODWC to release water for the fishery. During the 2011 drought, that donated water was exhausted. As an interim measure, ODWC decided to stop stocking trout and Southwestern Power Administration, which manages hydropower generation at Tenkiller, began to do a little more generation than they had previously. The donated water storage from Sequoyah County Fuels is now no longer available as the company has relinquished their rights to the water. Other entities with contracted water storage have donated water to ODWC for the fishery. The Corps worked with state, federal, and other entities to explore possible solutions, resulting in an Interim Solution for the Tenkiller Downstream Trout Fishery Enhancement project until a more permanent solution can be found. -More- Interim Solution for the Tenkiller Downstream Trout Fishery Enhancement The interim solution is a two part mechanical approach that allows ODWC to better utilize its donated water for the benefit of the fishery. The first part is a Supersaturated Dissolved Oxygen System that will target the stilling basin where the 2011 fish kill occurred. ODWC can operate the system when the dissolved oxygen level reaches critical lows in that area. The second part is a low flow pipe system that transports water from the surge tank at the hydropower plant to the stilling basin. Prior to the low flow pipe, there was one mechanism to release water for the trout fishery, and it had a minimum release of 150 cubic feet per second. At certain times, this was more water than ODWC wanted released. The low flow pipe allows ODWC to conserve the donated water by releasing as little as 50 cubic feet per second. In the past, when the gates were used for releases late in the day, the releases needed to continue until personnel arrived in the morning to close the gates. The low flow pipe will be controlled from the Fort Gibson powerhouse so releases can be changed around the clock. Several federal, state and local agencies, water supply entities, and private organizations were involved in this endeavor. Other efforts underway Partnership efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Tulsa District, ODWC, SWPA, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are underway to ensure the trout fishery remains a vital part of the local economy. The four agencies will devise and implement a plan to monitor conditions throughout the fishery downstream of the dam. The program will provide consistently measured data to allow for better decisions in managing the donated water available. ODWC has installed 13 monitors at various locations downstream of the dam and date is being gathered and analyzed. Temporary deviations that raise the conservation pool to allow for additional water are possible dependent upon the feasibility of such actions. A long-term solution would potentially involve a permanent reallocation of storage in the lake. The primary purpose of Tenkiller Lake is for flood control, so part of the storage space is designated, or allocated, for this use. Water storage space is designated for other uses as well. Within the conservation pool, there may be specific use allocations for other authorized purposes of that lake such as water supply and hydropower. At Tenkiller, although one of the authorized purposes is fish and wildlife, all of the water storage is allocated for other authorized uses. A reallocation could change the amount of water designated for certain uses and designate it for fish and wildlife. This action would require congressional authorization and funding, and would require a series of studies prior to execution.

I'm not sure of your sources, but everything I have read and heard in presentations is that wind power output is pretty low when electric demand is highest. Here is an excerpt from an Congressional Research Service report. RTO's are Regional Transmission Organizations. They are the entities that administer the electrical transmission grid and ensure reliable power. MISO is the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (covers up midwest) and PJM is the RTO that covers the mid-atlantic area as well as the chicago area. Here is a link to the report. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42818.pdf "In order to estimate and plan for resource adequacy and reserve margins, RTOs assign capacity credits (expressed as a percentage of nameplate capacity) to generators based on a generator’s ability to supply needed power during peak demand periods. Capacity credits generally take into account planned and unplanned outages for power generators during a calendar year. Wind generators are typically assigned relatively low capacity credits to reflect the variable nature and generation profile of wind power. In the MISO RTO, wind generators receive a 14.9% capacity credit,38 while PJM assigns wind generators a 13% capacity credit.39 As an example, a 100 MW wind project in PJM would only contribute 13 MW towards resource adequacy and reserve margins. By comparison, a coal or nuclear generator may be assigned 80% to 85% capacity credits." These RTOs are saying they can only count on 14.9% and 13% respectively of installed wind capacity to be available during their electric peaks when they need the power the most. I am not saying there isn't a place for wind energy at all. I just believe there are limits to how much of a slice it can occupy in the overall portfolio of US electric generation and that the intermittency of wind power output is one of its big limiting factors.

My understanding is that one of the biggest problems with wind power is that it produces power when it is least needed. From a number of presentations that I have seen, wind produces near its nameplate capacity at night when electric demand is low yet contributes very little on hot summer days when the electric grid experiences its peak demand. As a result, conventional generation facilities have to remain in place to keep the lights on during peak demand periods and then is forced to sit idle during lower demand periods.