oxygen levels

[Trevor K]

Saw a post on facebook about there being some issues with poor oxygen levels and some fish dying. I'll be down next week and was curious if anybody else had seen anything like that. 

[OldTackleCollector]

For what it's worth, I thrashed the water in the area across from Lookout Island for four hours this afternoon (Tuesday), and never saw a dead trout floating by, or on the bank. Everything seemed normal.

[duckydoty]

I was on the upper end from the cable to fall creek on Monday and only saw 1 dead fish. Could have easily been a mis handled fish.  It is that time of year that D O's drop out and we did have a huge flood this spring which complicate matters. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

I was there over the weekend and never saw any.  I actually noticed the fish fought better when the water was off than when it was running "fish water".

[Phil Lilley]

Low DO on Taney this time of year is normal but the DO is really pretty good right now.  On into Oct - Nov is when it gets noticeably bad.

There are those on FB that always exaggerate the negative on Taney... we always see dead trout on the bottom, esp below Fall Creek where fish are gut hooked and/or mishandled.  BTW - trout sink when they died.

http://www.swl-wc.usace.army.mil/pages/data/plots/pics/trdo.jpg

You see when the water is running, DO is high.  But when it's not, it tanks.  Again, normal.  Just below the dam, the outlets keep the DO high, spreading the DO.  The further down lake you go, the better the DO is.  Sunlight, wind all add O2 to the water.  At night is when you'll see the lowest levels.  

This will be the case through the fall season till Table Rock turns over.  This cool spell helps and will show up hopefully in it turning earlier than normal... maybe as early ad mid November.  But it's usually the first of December.

The spring floods will hurt us as far as dumping debry into Table Rock.  This stuff will eat up O2 and create problems for us, but no one knows how bad it will be.  We saw really bad water in '15 and it caused fish kills in the hatchery and in the lake.  The hatchery is better prepared for it this year since a new intake pipe has been installed bringing water from TR to the hatchery from a different level of the lake.  But it won't help the lake itself.

It's all a watch and see deal... there's nothing that can be done.  It's a tailwater and we get the water the lake above gives us.

[Trevor K]

5 hours ago, Phil Lilley said:

Low DO on Taney this time of year is normal but the DO is really pretty good right now.  On into Oct - Nov is when it gets noticeably bad.

There are those on FB that always exaggerate the negative on Taney... we always see dead trout on the bottom, esp below Fall Creek where fish are gut hooked and/or mishandled.  BTW - trout sink when they died.

http://www.swl-wc.usace.army.mil/pages/data/plots/pics/trdo.jpg

You see when the water is running, DO is high.  But when it's not, it tanks.  Again, normal.  Just below the dam, the outlets keep the DO high, spreading the DO.  The further down lake you go, the better the DO is.  Sunlight, wind all add O2 to the water.  At night is when you'll see the lowest levels.  

This will be the case through the fall season till Table Rock turns over.  This cool spell helps and will show up hopefully in it turning earlier than normal... maybe as early ad mid November.  But it's usually the first of December.

The spring floods will hurt us as far as dumping debry into Table Rock.  This stuff will eat up O2 and create problems for us, but no one knows how bad it will be.  We saw really bad water in '15 and it caused fish kills in the hatchery and in the lake.  The hatchery is better prepared for it this year since a new intake pipe has been installed bringing water from TR to the hatchery from a different level of the lake.  But it won't help the lake itself.

It's all a watch and see deal... there's nothing that can be done.  It's a tailwater and we get the water the lake above gives us.

Thank you for the excellent explanation!

[BIG K]

With the water coming through the dam at 57 to 58 degrees I would think table rock will turn a little earlier than normal this year