I was going to fish with Doc Spratley this afternoon on the lower Sandy in my driftboat. As I crossed the freeway bridge I nearly drove off the road. The river was chocolate brown. Yesterday I looked at the river and it was a beautiful green color. Something has happened high up in the system to blow it out. I would bet that something happened with the glacier and this heat. Oh well. Hope it clears. Just don't plan on fishing the Sandy without calling Jack's snack and tackle first.
Just to add to SandySteel's comments, Jack Glass' father told me the Sandy started to go out mid-morning. Nice shade of milk-chocolate brown. It will be a couple of days before it will clear. As SandySteel said, "Call Ahead."
aaahhh Eric,
Your first time out in how long and mother nature does this to you, must be an omen or something :grin: . It totally ruined my weekend plans also. My daughter came up from Albany and we were going to do our annual fathers day weekend over-nighter on the river. I spent about a day and a half getting everthing ready and packed in the boat. Drove down to Oxbow and :shocked: , I couldn't believe my eyes. I talked to the guy working the gate at the park and he said he had heard that a big chunk of glacier had broke loose on Mt. Hood and melted. I have never seen the Sandy in all my years of fishing it look like this at this time of year. I talked with Jack as I drove out or the park and he said that at ten in the morning the river looked fine then turned from there. Well, sometimes mother nature can throw ya a curve ball. Looks like I'll be fishing somewhere else with the daughter on Sunday and doing the over-nighter on some other weekend. I would say it will be at least a couple days before the Sandy is fishable again, be sure and call ahead before you go.
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I've lived on the Sandy for seven years now. It seems to me that we are seeing more sediment in the river during melts. It used to come up and get more chalky than muddy up where I live. I wonder if there has been some construction or other human induced change to the bank areas up here that allow more sediment to run off than before.
I went up the sandy yesterday with my 4-year old son to fish the upper area, only checking the river level before I left. 40 miles is a long drive to find out the river is the color chocolate milk! I turned around and headed to the Wilson, the weather was great , and my son got the do a little fishing, and play in the river a bit. Had a great Father/son day, and didn’t have to clean a fish.
Sean
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hey nipper,
usually when it warms up, it does get really milky. it only turns chocolate when something breaks off into the river. two or three years ago there was a slide on the mountain and a section of river changed course. as i recall, it was brown for about ten days. the mud at the boat ramp at oxbow was more than ankle deep (as i came to find out). i was hoping that the big rain we got earlier this year would have cleared out the deeper holes, but chances are this slide is just going to fill them in again.
__________________ The days are long but the years are short.
"This community is what it is, because our citizens are who they are." - Plato
From what I was told today the Zig Zag was the cause of the brown junk. It seems as if there was a slide caused by glacier.
9-10-00 was the last time that there was this kind of slide in the Sandy basin. There is still a MASSIVE amount of sand and sediment filtering down the Sandy from this event nearly two years ago. As I remember, it was weeks if not months before the color came around to normal.
I wonder if this current slide is going to produce the amazing amount of sediment and sand the last one did.... If so look for your favorite holes to be filled with sand until the fall rains or maybe even the winter rains to push it down. Combined with the slide of 9-10-00 this might be years before all the sediment and sand filter through..... This sucks!
bryan
rats! i was hoping to get in a trip to my favorite hole up at marmot. last year it was so choked with sand the chinook didn't even slow down when going through it. the rains we got earlier in the year led me to believe that the hole would've been deeper this year and more prone to holding fish. oh well.
__________________ The days are long but the years are short.
"This community is what it is, because our citizens are who they are." - Plato
I was on the columbia near frenchmans bar and was wondering if the color was a little off. I know the sandy is just a drop in the buckett for the columdia, but it was a little milky or something, also we saw lots of oil on the water going past us we could see it and smell it.
Sandy is blown out
It will be a couple of days before it will clear. As SandySteel said, "Call Ahead."
I turned around and headed to the Wilson, the weather was great 
, and my son got the do a little fishing, and play in the river a bit. Had a great Father/son day, and didn’t have to clean a fish. 
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