Huge rain impact on fishing

[Angry John]

California resivores have been dropping for years and we're in bad shape.  One of the lakes Isabela was huge when I was a kid and very beautiful.  Isabela was down so low that they were going to stop the outflow to prevent total drainage.  With the huge storms this year the lakes are making a great comeback.  With all the years of being low and the sudden fill is fishing going to suck for a long time???

[mixel]

On the contrary, I think it will be much better. Fish will move way up in the Spring, higher than they've been able to in a long time. More spots to bed, more room for the fish and less stressed. I'm also in CA and loving all this rain. 12" over the past week with 10' of snow at higher elevations. I love a 10yr storm.

[Team9nine]

Agree with the above post. Historically, any time you get lake level rises that cover large areas of previously dried ground, the fisheries tend to take off for several years. This is for a variety of reasons including nutrient influx, expanded surface area (more living and spawning area) and increased cover and food options.

 

-T9

[WRB]

Lake Isabella has a bigger problem then rain, it's dam was condemned and the lake can't be refilled to full pool. 

I wrote a article for In-Fisherman titled A Rare Chance for a World Record Bass* when the Isy was producing 18+ lb bass. Isabella has the forage base in both Threadfin, Gizzard Shad, a good trout, golden shiner, bluegill and crappie population. Isabella is fed by 2 rivers the north fork of the kern river is a class 5 white water River at  9,000 to 15,000 fps flow rates in the spring, it's not lack of water for this lake.

Our northern Cal lakes are currently topping out and overflowing the dams with emergency and spectacular water releases at this time, several lakes closed to fishing do to the dangerous conditions. The SoCal lakes are another story, we have had a wonderful January rain fall, no down pours, the lakes at this time are still at historic low water levels but a few more storms and things should change.

When lakes fill the ecosystems have lots of new forage for bass, it's good!

Tom

* book 64, Jan-dec '86

[OCdockskipper]

Back in the late 70's, my parents had a house on Canyon Lake in Southern California.  At a time I was just learning how to fish for bass, California was in the middle of a historic drought.  Canyon Lake was lower than it ever had been with many homeowners docks now sitting on dry land or just inches of water.  That winter, storm after storm pummeled the area and by February, the lake was full and water was flowing at a heavy rate over the dam.

 

Since I was just a beginner, the variances were extreme for me.  When the lake was at its lowest, fishing was really good because the bass were concentrated on the diminishing amount of structure & cover.  The first year after the lake returned to full pool was actually a little more difficult (for a beginner), for now there were so many more targets with the same amount of fish.  The second year at full pool is when the explosion began, for all of the smaller fish had been able to hide for a year and increase the survival rate.  As team9nine said, the fishery then took off for another 3-4 years, mostly based on that one year of increased survival rate.

[flyingmonkie]

Many of our lakes spent 3 or 4 years really low before the last two years of relatively wet (and full pool) conditions.  The brush that grew along the banks while low is now underwater.  For several reasons, this has led to better than average fishing for us.