Cook Station Gage

[bkbying89]

I can imagine the number of people that use the gauges on various rivers and campgrounds that are subject to flooding. They show up to find a muddy mess of a campground and not being able to set up until the water recedes. Some fun. They will be calling their congressmen. 

[mreed81]

10 hours ago, MOFishwater said:

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.  

Empty inbox. There are clearly no good places near Cook Station.

 

[bkbying89]

I emailed my representative and voiced my opinion as to the closing of so many gauges. I do not really believe that there is that big of a budget crunch that they could not still provide some gauges on real popular rivers like the Current, Black, and others that get some heavy use by vacationers and tourist. It says that the gauges may be closed. It doesn't mean they have to be closed. Voice your opinion. If you want a gauge kept open tell your rep and try to keep them open. 

[Deadstream]

On April 13, 2017 at 0:48 PM, Greasy B said:

Not enough water you'll wish you would never heard of the hell hole. 

Whats wrong with that? All some of you guys do is cry about over fishing, to many people, etc.   Back in the "old days"  we didn't have that problem.  You learned that it sucks to drag a canoe 1/4 mile at a time.  You didn't go back.  I really think the GPS and such has really ruined fishing for the future.  How many people can read a map and use a compass? 

[bkbying89]

6 hours ago, Deadstream said:

Whats wrong with that? All some of you guys do is cry about over fishing, to many people, etc.   Back in the "old days"  we didn't have that problem.  You learned that it sucks to drag a canoe 1/4 mile at a time.  You didn't go back.  I really think the GPS and such has really ruined fishing for the future.  How many people can read a map and use a compass? 

 

Right, what was wrong with the horse and buggy.

[SpoonDog]

On 4/15/2017 at 0:46 AM, Deadstream said:

 How many people can read a map and use a compass? 

 

More than can calculate stream discharge.

In the "old days" all sorts of pollutants were directly discharged to streams; then and now gages help us determine how much we can release without serious impacts to fish, wildlife, or downstream drinking water.  Gages help responders determine when a plume of pollution will reach downstream water users, helping to coordinate cleanup and response efforts.  Gage data informs land planning, runoff mitigation, and the volume and timing of water to be withdrawn for domestic, industrial, and agricultural uses- all in a way which limits impacts to fish and wildlife.  And when communities, individuals or industries pollute, suck streams dry, or otherwise cause harm to public natural resources, stream gage data forms the legal foundation for prosecution.

All that goes away when these tools are dismantled.  There's something romantic about setting off into the unknown.  I get it.  But we should give critical consideration to the valuable information these gages provide to citizens and policymakers before scrapping them in the name of nostalgia.  

[Deadstream]

Hey I didn't mean to imply I was for the scrapping of the gauges. I just was trying to just point out we did get by without the tech.  Didn't do a very good job. 

[fishinwrench]

54 minutes ago, Deadstream said:

Hey I didn't mean to imply I was for the scrapping of the gauges. I just was trying to just point out we did get by without the tech.  Didn't do a very good job. 

You did a fine job.   Everybody was like "Ermergerd!  How will we ever fish and float without guages?"

Guages are nice, but the lack of them isn't going to keep many of us at home playing Scrabble on the weekends.

[moguy1973]

Every morning I'm not going to know what the temperature is at Cook Station because Fox2 News always has what the temperature is there because of that gauge.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, we got along without the gauges, but it was more expensive, more time-consuming, more stressful, and less efficient.

I live 25 miles from the NEAREST float stream.  There is one canoe rental on it, and he's only open on weekends most of the time...I float during the week exclusively.  My brother lives a few miles closer, but it would still be an inconvenience to have him run to the river and look at it to tell me what it looks like.  So pretty much, I'm left to either driving to the river the day before I want to float to see what it looks like, 50 mile round trip, or just take off to the river that morning and hope it's in fishing condition.   Given that the headwaters of the river are 50 plus miles from my house, I can't depend upon the upper watershed getting anything close to the same amount of rain that I get at the house, so I can't use my rainfall as a gauge of how the river is going to look like.

And that's just my closest river.  What happens if it's a stream farther away?  Before the internet and the real time gauges, we had to depend upon a canoe livery in the stretch of river we wanted to fish...call them and ask them what the river looked like.  Many canoe livery people only know or care about whether or not the river has enough water to float or too much water to float; they have no clue about what constitutes good FISHING conditions.

Before the gauges, it was often necessary to have back-up plans in case the stretch of river you planned to float wasn't in good fishing condition.  There were times when we spent half a day looking for good water, and few times we ended up just driving back home.

So like bk said, we got by with horse and buggy.  But nobody wants to go back to the horse and buggy.