Central Indiana Trout Unlimited

August 7, 2008

Thanks to everyone for their support and respect for the advisory.
We had a very productive meeting with IDNR, Corps of Engineers and CITU yesterday. The meeting was very informative for everyone involved. We learned alot about how the dam is operated.
It is obvious that the Corps has been working hard to help the situation in the tailwater. As we saw a couple of days ago, the Corps tried running the Main Gate at a setting of 0.01. The Corps could not previously operate the gate at that setting due to operating directions from their management. We are fortunate to have a local Corps manager that is willing to go to bat for our fishery and petition his management to try something new. The end result is that the Corps gave authorization to our local office to operate the Main Gate at the reduced setting needed to produce the 50 cfs flow we are seeing now.
Our local Corps are also researching past seasons to see what we can learn from past years that could help us this year and in the future. The disturbing result of the research is that in the past 18 years, two years produced temperatures at the bottom of the lake above 22 degrees C. We will need to do some further study to see what Spring conditions lead to these years, but it is likely that we will have a year like that in the future. We are working with the Corps to see if operation of the dam in the Spring could lessen or alleviate this situation, but there may not be anything they can do to eliminate that potential high temperature situation.
IDNR was very helpful and supportive at the meeting. We are fortunate to have their support and involvement.
The end result of the meeting was that the Corps will try and help the fishery in every way they are able, and they will be able to draw from the bottom of the lake for the rest of the season.
After the meeting we relocated a temperature probe to better help us monitor temperature changes throughout the tailwater. We are hopeful that the temps will remain hospitable for trout all the way down the stream, but we need to gather some mid-day data to make sure the temps don't get too high during the peak of the day in the lower reaches of the stream.
We are still going to keep the advisory in place whenever the water temps exceed 20 degrees C. Therefore feel free to fish the tailwater as long as the temps are below that level. Please be aware that as of right now, we do not know if below 252 bridge during the middle of the day is safe for us to fish. If you are going to fish down stream of the park, please carry a thermometer and take regular readings. If the water temps exceed 70 degrees F, please move up stream to a cooler location. We are going to need everyone's support until be can build a temerature map of the stream at these new flows and temps. We are confident that all fo the users of the tailwater will do what is best for the trout.
Lastly, we would ask that everyone not call the Corps office in the next several weeks. The large number of phone calls they have been fielding in the past couple of months, has made it difficult for them to do their business. If you have questions, concerns or complaints about the Corps or the tailwater in general, please send us a note at browntrout@centralindianatu.org and we will funnel these concerns to the Corps or provide an answer to you directly.
Thank you to everyone for your support, and we will see you on the stream.