Which gage?

[Iceman12]

Which gage would be the most accurate at giving me an idea on what the river is looking like from Bennett Springs down to the NRO campground? The closest ones are Windyville and above Lake Niangua. From what I can tell the Windyville gage is closer to this stretch of river than the Lake Niangua one, correct? Just trying to figure out which gage I should be looking at

[fishinwrench]

Windyville.  But I do better by monitoring the guage height instead of cfs.  

2.0 - 2.5 ft at Windyville is what I consider perfect. 3.5+ is bad news.

[Al Agnew]

Personally I'd use the above Lake Niangua gauge if I didn't already know what the level in feet signifies on the Windyville gauge like Wrench does.  The reason for that is that the Windyville gauge is well above Bennett Spring, and Bennett adds a LOT of water to the river.  However, there are enough springs and flowing tributaries between the spring and the lake that the above the lake gauge won't be too accurate for the stretch immediately below Bennett, either.  So in this case you have to look at all the gauges to get a good picture of what the river is looking like.  

Right now the Windyville gauge shows 272 cfs, and the Bennett Spring gauge shows 375 cfs.  The Windyville gauge is very close the median, thus the river up there i  s close to normal for this time of year.  Bennett is flowing more than twice its normal.  The above the lake gauge is showing 1180 cfs, which is right at the 75th percentile, and about double the normal.  So...you can figure that above Bennett the river is about normal for this time of year, but Bennett is adding a lot more water than usual, so below it the river is still higher than normal, but should still be very fishable, since Bennett won't be pumping MUDDY water into it.  But by the time you get down to the area above the lake, the river will have picked up a lot more flow from tributaries and other springs, and will be close to the upper limit of being fishable.  Another way to look at it...if the river is flowing 272 cfs up at Windyville, figure it will be flowing a little more than that by the time it gets to the spring...maybe 350-400 cfs.  Then add the 375 cfs the spring is flowing, and you have something on the order of 725-775 cfs immediately below the spring.  

[fishinwrench]

A buddy of mine floated from Bennett to Barclay yesterday. He said it was about a foot high but fished pretty good, he caught a decent number of rainbows including 2 that were well above average size swinging a #8 leech on a sink-tip.

Looks like it's gonna be mid-June before I get a shot at it. 

[oneshot]

I went down to the river about noon, 5/18, it is up but floatable and Rainbow Trout are biting.

I didn't float but I would be watching for Trees more than river level.

 

oneshot

[Iceman12]

How much above normal would you say it is?

[oneshot]

 

How much above normal would you say it is?

Still running about a foot deep. We haven't got much rain here yet. It is Good right now, floating and fishing should both be Good.

oneshot

[Iceman12]

Well, depending on the rain and what the gages say tomorrow, I may be going down to fish Sunday through friday

[oneshot]

Ok it is 2PM and river still looks good but it is clouding up again and all the water from the South hasn't got here yet.

 

oneshot

[Krazo]

 

Ok it is 2PM and river still looks good but it is clouding up again and all the water from the South hasn't got here yet.

 

oneshot

Where about on the river is this report from?