Dropping The Lake Right After The 1St

[Old plug]

Acorrding to the paper the annual draw down starts real soon. Nobody likes it but they do it. The paper also said the temperate at the darn ( thats at 6 ft) was 51 degrees. Not bad for this time of year. Maybe we can avoid some ice with a little luck. I sort of feel like we are going to get started on the boulders and chunk bank a little earlier.

[Wayne SW/MO]

What is the purpose of this draw down?

[crittermo]

they say that the draw down is to compensate for spring rains i believe, pretty

stupid if you ask me but when has amerun ever done anything with common sense.

amerun never has a clue about anything with the lake, if they can't steal

your land then they screw up your fishing with changing lake levels. just my opinion,

not trying to aggravate anyone.

[fishinwrench]

This lake can come up real quick, and when it does they can't just open the gates and blow the Osage out of its banks.

We also have a buttload of shoreline property owners that think their property value decreases if there is milfoil around their docks. The drawdown and frosting of the shoreline out to 4-5' during the winter keeps the milfoil and hydrilla from taking hold. Personally I'd LOVE to have the milfoil return, but....

There's also considerable seawall work that can't be done during normal pool, and construction crews that need work during the winter, so the drawdown allows that to happen.

Kind of a Win, win, win.

Another cool thing that comes from the winter drawdown that a bunch of fishermen don't realize is that during the first few warming trends of Spring the crawdads that are burrowed under the high & dry seawalls wake up and crawl back down to the waters edge. This "hatch" is what puts the bass on that killer jig and Wiggle Wart bite that everyone looks forward to.

[Blazerman]

Wrench, your right i never realized there was a crawdad hatch. But it makes sense.

I hear you too on the milfoil. Way back when i first started fishing the Lake, we always had a blast fishing behind and in front of the weed patches along the shore. We usually used a weightless worm to crawl across the top and then we would let it sink on the outside edge. Man the bass would explode out of those weeds.

And the other thing we always use was the old snag proof frog. Think you could get those things for about $1.79 back then. They would always advertise them in the back of Outdoor Life, Field & Stream and Sports Afield and you would send your money to the address listed to get them. Now they get like $5-$6 bucks for the exact same thing.

[Old plug]

They are not suppose to repaur seawalls anymore wrench i was told. That the reason for all the rip rap going on. A neighbor got rip rap last year abd allready has lost a good bit to wash out. Had he poured dyt concrete inbetween thise rocks tgat would have prevented it. He saud your not suppose to do that. I have put dry bsgs of concrete alone the botton of my sea wall in the past with bent rebar sticking out if them then the next year i would add another row of concrete bag connected to the older ones by rebar. I got sections of sea wall the reenforcemant mudt weigh well over a ton.

[Dewayne French]

Have they started dropping the lake any yet. It doesn't look that way from the report that is has been started down yet.

[Old plug]

They will Dewayne. But I just looked out the window and from the angle of my dock walkway it looks like it is still near normal. Sometimes it is a pretty sudden drop. I just wonder if they wil have to hold back because the Missouri is high. Daughter lives in Hermann and we go up. Hwy 94. The river looked full to me for this time if year.

[Goggle-Eyed]

Here is the 2014 guide curve.

[Dewayne French]

I saw that curve I just haven't fished up there this time of the year to know if iits a gradual drop over the month or a boom there it is down type of deal. Planning to come up next week and was just looking at the levels. With the cold I didn't want to get up there right after a major drop in levels. Hard enough to catchem any ways