Gasconade Hazelgreen Discharge Rate

[thewhitesnoop]

Good discussion.... I agree with Al actually. I never look at the gage height.  CFS is what matters.

[Bob in MO]

This past Tuesday the 23rd, I floated the six mile stretch above Gasconade Hills Resort. The flow that day was at 190. Went through two ripples where I had to wiggle a bit to keep the kayak moving.

[Al Agnew]

9 hours ago, Bob in MO said:

This past Tuesday the 23rd, I floated the six mile stretch above Gasconade Hills Resort. The flow that day was at 190. Went through two ripples where I had to wiggle a bit to keep the kayak moving.

Gotta remember that the gage at Hazelgreen is below the confluence of Osage Fork and Gasconade, and you were floating well above the confluence.  So if Osage Fork flows about 2/3rds the volume of the Gasconade above where they come together (which is probably about right for lower water conditions), you were floating on about 115 cfs, give or take 10 cfs.

 

[Bob in MO]

Thanks Al, I understand what your saying. 

But for future reference, I could look at the Hazelgreen gage, and say it's running at 150 and I know that the last time I fished this same stretch of river it read 190, that would give me an idea of what to expect, right? Now a caveat to that would be if the water shed for the Osage Fork had a recent dumping.

[Al Agnew]

On 8/26/2022 at 9:01 AM, Bob in MO said:

Thanks Al, I understand what your saying. 

But for future reference, I could look at the Hazelgreen gage, and say it's running at 150 and I know that the last time I fished this same stretch of river it read 190, that would give me an idea of what to expect, right? Now a caveat to that would be if the water shed for the Osage Fork had a recent dumping.

Correct.  Like I said, under stable water conditions (no big rains recently), you can figure that the Gasconade above the Osage Fork will be contributing about 60% of the flow at Hazelgreen, and the Osage Fork 40%.  So if you're floating not too far above the confluence, take the flow at Hazelgreen and multiply it by 0.6 and you'll be in the ballpark of the flow where you're floating.  So...150 cfs times .6 equals 90 cfs.  100 cfs is minimum for easy floating (though, Wrench will tell you and I agree that if you're fishing and willing to work at it a bit, you can have a lot of fun on flows well under 100 cfs).

But if there's been rain in the area recently, it's impossible to predict just how much water one stream is contributing and how much the other is.