John Day river level

[nabob]

I'm thinking about taking my 14' raft down the John Day this coming weekend (July2-4), floating from Twickenham to Clarno. But I'm concerned about the level. The gauge has been out for almost a week, but the level is probably going to be below 1000 cfs, maybe closer to 700 by the end of the week. Does anyone out there know if it is still runnable at that level? I don't mind dragging the boat over a few rocks, but I don't want to drag it the whole way to Clarno. How bad is it at 700? How low is too low? I've run it before at fairly low water, but I don't recall exactly how low it was.
Thanks for any help,
Rich

[BuKuBass]

With showers forecast for the next few days, the river might not get as low as you think.

IMO the main thing to concerned about is with the increasing temperatures, the upriver wind is becoming stronger in the afternoon. There were whitecaps on the river above Clarno last Wednesday. Don't pile your raft too high with gear.

[Get Bit]

Nabob,

We did the Gravel Pit to Spray drift in rafts yesterday(6/25) and had no problems. Could have done the driftboat easily. The level was just over 700 Friday. I really don't think you would have too much trouble.

Get Bit

P.S. Fishing was great!

[mrprincedog]

I did service creek to clarno in the driftboat last year. Level was 1000 when we launched and 750 when we pulled out 5 days later. I think twice we got out and had to pull the boat over shallow areas. Even then I think those two times could have been avoided if we had picked a better line.
Have fun.

[j.d.smallie]

We made a drift from up stream 4 miles to Clarno bridge Saturday. There was ample water for drifting. Water was clear and warm with lots of dinks being caught, couldn't find many big fish however.

[smokerchick]

Did Twickenham to Priest Hole on Saturday in cats with no problem. Saw several rafts and canoes, also.

[padisharcreel]

I got this info from a fly shop near the John Day Fishery:

The level it is at now is (700-800) is when we typical switched from driftboats to inflatables, rafts work with some work down to about 400 then it is single person pontoons only from then on.

Chris :applause:

[BuKuBass]

"about 400 then it is single person pontoons only from then on"

Or wide-@$$ canoes or kayaks. IMHO, my Drifter (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.oceankayak.com/images/boats/drifter.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.oceankayak.com/drifter.html&h=1158&w=750&sz=203&tbnid=FZswSGWqxJo J:&tbnh=150&tbnw=97&hl=en&start=9&prev=/images%3Fq%3Docean%2Bkayak%26svnum%3D100%26hl%3Den %26hs%3DQka%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefo x-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN) is one of the best craft for low water level drifting and fishing. Y'all should try a sit-on-top yak. Most are stable, haul a boat-load of gear inside the hull, and altho it sits low in the water-less wind resistance, big factor on the John Day- it's easy to get out of whenupon I clip a painter from the yak to my belt and it follows me like a puppy when I wade.

[nabob]

Thanks to all the ifishers who responded to my post. We drifted Twickenham to Clarno July 2-4. On 7/2 the level at Service creek was 631 cfs, on 7/3 it was 573, and on 7/4 it was 543. There were 5 of us (2 parents, 2 teenagers and one 9 year old) in my 14’ raft and two inflatable kayaks. We had very little trouble getting down river.
We put in at Twickenham, it was about noon by the time we actually got moving. I had gotten very little sleep the night before (stayed at Service Creek – it was very nice but we didn’t get in until late and I woke up early) – so we just put in a short day, about 5.5 miles and 2.5 hours.
The next day was a killer. We had 29 miles to go to get to Clarno and were averaging 2.5 miles per hour, so I was looking at 10-12 hours of rowing in the next two days. We decided to get as far down stream as we could so that we could take out a little earlier the next day. We wound up rowing from 9:30 in the morning until about 5 in the evening. It went better than I had hoped since we didn’t get much upstream wind – we made about 19 miles that day. Needless to say I didn’t get much fishing done since I was rowing most of the time, but everyone else got some in as we made our way down river.
After dinner that night, Anna (our 9 yr old) and I decided to try our luck before dark. Anna hooked a fish on every cast! At least until mom came down to see, then the bite cooled off. It was fun while it lasted.
The next day went pretty well, with only 10 miles to go the pressure was off, so we all got some good fishing in. Over the three days we caught tons of fish, but mostly 8-10 inchers. A few nice size ones that probably ran to 16 inches or so.
The only significant rapids were Fossil and Burnt Ranch. Fossil was the trickier one at this water level. There’s not really enough water to get an oar in the water, so the current just pushes you into the wall before you can do much about it. I was able to do more maneuvering at Burnt Ranch and got through without incident. There were plenty of shallow spots, but we only had to get out and push once. The biggest problem with the low water was the slow pace – I rowed pretty much the whole way.
There were plenty of people on the river, enough that we were a little worried about getting a campsite on Sunday night (that’s one reason we went 19 miles – we started to look for camps after 15 miles but they were all taken), but wound up in a great spot. All the people we ran into were very friendly, just out to have a good time over the holiday weekend.
Happy Drifting!