Cook Station Gage

[mreed81]

FYI, Cook Station gage activities may be discontinued as of July this year due to lack of funding

 

[bkbying89]

The USGS has lost a lot of funding. State and private funding are going away for a lot of gauges. Call, e-mail, write or knock on the doors of your state Representatives and Senators. Private funding would help if you belong to a group that would care to sponsor a gauge.

[Griffster]

What is everyone going to do without the gauges?  How do you know the level of your stream for floating?  Gauges in the area and lower river gauges may not be all that reliable?  

 

 

[fishinwrench]

Well I hate to sound like a curmudgeon..... But river fishing has been going on since way before guages and the internet.  

Maybe this is a sign that we've gotten too soft and rely too heavily on things like that at our fingertips.

I have been fishing/floating rivers since the late 1960's and never started monitoring the guages until 2001 

Can we no longer survive without computers and our cute little mobile devices?

[bkbying89]

9 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Well I hate to sound like a curmudgeon..... But river fishing has been going on since way before guages and the internet.  

Maybe this is a sign that we've gotten too soft and rely too heavily on things like that at our fingertips.

I have been fishing/floating rivers since the late 1960's and never started monitoring the guages until 2001 

Can we no longer survive without computers and our cute little mobile devices?

 

Right you are, Having fished and hunted as long as some of us have we should be able to decide if conditions are right. However, many of people today are tied up with work and family and do not have the experience or common sense (if it rained hard three days ago the river will be great for floating tomorrow) that we gained over the years. I admit not having experience on some streams so the gauges helped me decide where I fish.

[SpoonDog]

The Ozarks are a complicated place.  That Current River gage is so high up, in such a narrow valley, big storms may not change the river much unless it sits directly over the headwaters.  Underground flow mean heavy rains one watershed can affect another.  The Jacks Fork is  notoriously flashy, I've seen it go from floatable to sketchy in two hours.   

If folks could've checked stream levels remotely in the 60's, they would've.  Too many people gleefully using jetboats and GPS and Fish Finders for me to buy the argument there's anything wrong with someone checking a stream gage.  It's valuable information (otherwise we wouldn't be having the discussion) used by anglers as well as paddlers, campers, property owners and scientists. 

If you're concerned, do contact your congressional representatives- they control the purse strings and they ultimately decide what gets funded.  Make sure they understand the function these stream gages play in supporting rural economies.

 

 Otherwise, take solace in the fact that whatever isn't spent on golf and vacations will fund a couple feet of the yyyuuuuugest wall you've ever seen 

[fishinwrench]

Oooh man,  There are a couple guys on here that are sharpening their talons and preparing to dive bomb you for that "statement".?   I can already predict what they are gonna say. 

Things like:. How do you quantify that?  And "Where's your proof?"  And then, the crusher......"I bet you can't even read a guage".  

[mreed81]

On ‎4‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 8:55 PM, fishinwrench said:

Well I hate to sound like a curmudgeon..... But river fishing has been going on since way before guages and the internet.  

Maybe this is a sign that we've gotten too soft and rely too heavily on things like that at our fingertips.

I have been fishing/floating rivers since the late 1960's and never started monitoring the guages until 2001 

Can we no longer survive without computers and our cute little mobile devices?

Wrench, I'm a first year millennial, I needed to use my smart phone's GPS just to get me back to this page!

 

[MOFishwater]

dude. now everyone knows there are good fishing spots near Cook Station's gage. You're gonna ruin it, expect some angry notes in your inbox.  

[Greasy B]

Like SpoonDog says "the Ozark's is a complicated place"

That river has a very narrow safe zone for floating. Too much water and you likely to be sucked under a strainer or swept over a home made dam. Not enough water you'll wish you would never heard of the hell hole.