Bonneville Pool Level/Flows

[Tar Heel]

I fished the B Pool Friday and man was is low for this time of year. Places normally under 6' of water were high and dry. Anyone know of a site to determne ahead of time how much they are releasing, but more importantly, some benchmark of "normal range" for a given time of year?

[Hunt'nFish]

Click on "Data/Marine" clear on at the top of this IFish page, click USGS River Stages and click on the appropriate spot of the map for your inquiry.
I suggest you look at the gage just below the Dalles Dam for level of Bonnie pool and look at the discharge on the gage below the Bonnie dam.

Here is the link for the level of the Bonnie pool: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?14105700

An here is the link for discharge.....actually this link might contain both:
http://www.nwd-wc.usace.army.mil/ftppub/project_data/daily/bon.txt

Remember power generation needs drive Bonnie fluctuations. So drastic differances from day to day.
Hunt'nFish

[Tar Heel]

Thanks, Mike. You know it was weird Friday, River at late summer levels. Normally I wouldn't adjust my fishing days to water levels, and instead look for nice days on the R!
We went to fish the pre-spawn and got thrown off a bit by not fishing deep enough. I think the CR fish have along ways to go yet to spawn--next full moon I'll be dead on it! I bet the water will be up a good 6' whatever the power demands might be, and they must be filling up the lakes up stream and working their way down. I wonder if that's how they do it, other things being equal?

Just checkd it out, and th all-time recorded low flow was April one year due to closure of John day Dam--maybe that's what we saw Friday. Max flow was one June when it reached over 1m cfs! Now that's high water.

[beetlespin]

About a month ago the flow rates doubled over night. If I understand it correctly, the dam is requied to increase the flows this time of year to "flush" the salmon smolt out to sea. Seems to work. The runs have been better since they started.