Suitable Flow Rate for Trout Fishing ?

[jdmidwest]

17 hours ago, Gavin said:

The Greer guage is the one you need to watch. We camped at the Greer Confluence one January were there was NO flow coming in from above Greer. The sand bar we camped on is usually under 2-3' of water.

Where do you find the Greer Gauge?  All USGS shows any more is Bardley.  I thought they took it offline years ago during the great reduction of gauges.

[tjm]

Greer

https://waterwatch.usgs.gov/?m=real&r=mo

[jdmidwest]

13 hours ago, tjm said:

Greer

https://waterwatch.usgs.gov/?m=real&r=mo

Thats the one that monitors the spring, not the river.  Not sure if that is a good indicator of flow.

There used to be one on the Hwy 19 bridge, but it has been offline for years.  Stuck with Bardley.

That being said, caught a nice 20 inch walleye below the state line Saturday.  Bass were slow and small.  We went Myrtle down for the first time in the jet boat.  Hot and bass were very picky.

This link works to the monitor site

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/USGS-07071000/#dataTypeId=continuous-00065-0&period=P7D

[Al Agnew]

3 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Thats the one that monitors the spring, not the river.  Not sure if that is a good indicator of flow.

There used to be one on the Hwy 19 bridge, but it has been offline for years.  Stuck with Bardley.

That being said, caught a nice 20 inch walleye below the state line Saturday.  Bass were slow and small.  We went Myrtle down for the first time in the jet boat.  Hot and bass were very picky.

This link works to the monitor site

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/USGS-07071000/#dataTypeId=continuous-00065-0&period=P7D

You are correct.  That's the gauge for Greer Spring, and is pretty much useless in itself for gauging the river either above or below Greer.  In times of low water like now, about the only thing you can possibly glean from it is to figure that the river above the spring is probably flowing less than 100 cfs, so if you take the flow of the spring (right now 411 cfs) and add 50-75 cfs to it, you'll get the flow of the river directly downstream from Hwy. 19.  

 

[WestCentralFisher]

The Greer gauge is useful in a very specific way, but not so much as a direct indicator.

I've noticed the following pattern on the Eleven Point (Bardley) gauge after a big rain:

1. The initial rise, which hits the Bardley gauge some number of hours after the rain hits, depending on where exactly the highest rain concentration is. This rise is the result of runoff

2. The initial fall, which can take place over hours or days following the rise

3. A second, smaller, but often still pretty significant rise after the initial decline. Depending on the situation, this can be enough to turn the stream back to being muddy and blown out, or it can be barely noticeable except for maybe turning the water a darker shade of green. This can be as delayed as a few days later, and is the result of the event impacting the spring system. This is where the Greer gauge can be an advanced indicator of the river being blown out. Obviously it will eventually show on the Bardley gauge, but later. 

It's not unique for springs to be lagging indicators of precipitation events, but the Eleven Point is somewhat unusual in that it is so very reliant on one specific, very large spring. Rivers like the Current have similar trends, but it's muddied (some pun intended) because they are affected by many different spring systems that may behave differently. 

My source for this is that this concept once buggered up a would-be float trip for us on the Eleven Point. The initial crest and decline occurred, flows were fine, it was bright sunny in the whole aftermath, and then when we got there the river was muddy and blown out anyway. We ended up on the upper Jack's, which was a great outcome, but I still remember the initial disappointment keenly. I also really like looking at and analyzing river flow graphs, for some reason that I'd struggle to adequately explain.