Photos of Beaver Dam Flood Releases
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I updated my 2008 photo gallery and have added some photos of the flood releases at Beaver this week. Beaver is the uppermost dam on the White River system in Arkansas.
http://www.flyflinger.com/photos.php
Critique and comment welcome. Thanks.
ScottHeh – beauty – you beat me to posting.
Great capture of the power of that water – amazing!
I’ve gotta get up that way to fish – my bud’s folks live somewhere up there, and we keep talking about chasing trout there. We’ve gotta stop talking and start fishing!
Kendal, thanks.
Is the Beaver Dam Store nearby?
Yes, it is. Just a half a mile or so down the road from dam turn-off. The same folks own Spider Creek Resort there too. Very nice place to stay.
Thanks, Zach.
It will be a while before the river stage comes down enough to really tell. This is about the 3rd or 4th flood release I’ve witnessed on Beaver. It was as high a release as the others but for shorter duration. We are hoping the new J-vanes stood the flows well. They will have certainly changed the gravel deposits and dynamics of the river. It will be interesting to see if they did what they were suppose to do–keep the main channel open and allow the gravel deposits to wrap around to the inside banks. The soil along the bank is so poor and loamy, we always have some bank erosion and new trees down.
This all reminds me in fact of the flooding that occurred on the Guadalupe River below Canyon Lake in Central Texas.
That area is supposed to be the southern-most self-sustaining trout fishery in the U.S. – which was discovered quit by accident years ago – but it was almost wiped out when there was an overflow in 2002 (I think that’s right).
Sadly, that flooding wasn’t controlled – but it’s still a cool place.
I think I’ve a set up from there – hang on – yeah –
http://www.kendallarsonphotography.com/tpwdguad/
We’d just gone through a certified fishing instructor course that TPWD puts on as we might incorporate it into our certified kayak fishing training (another story for another time – I’m working with a couple other guys on a non-profit that’s a kayak fishing advocacy group called KASA – Kayak Anglers Society of America) – and then spent an afternoon on the Guad afterwards.
The river is still a beauty – houses many treasures – and some good trout too, due in part to TU’s efforts there – and TPWD’s efforts too.
Kendal
Wow thats a lot of water! I never made it over there when I lived in TN. We always went to the Little Red or the Spring River where a friend has a cabin. I’m surprised at how blue the water is in the lake and the river below the dam. With as much rain that has come though I’d expect the water to be heavy in sediment.
I think photo #16 would make for an interesting high contrast black and white image.
How long of a duration are the flood gates open? Have you noticed that fish tend to be able to hold in some of the same areas when a large discharge of water like this happens?http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.
http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox InstagramChad, Beaver’s a little different in that most of the feeder streams and rivers are on its upper end. The deep end by the dam usually stays very clear. Monte Ne, where I live, is about 1/3 to 1/2 way down the reservoir and its arm and main channel is always muddy right after a flood. Once you make it north the of Hwy 12 bridge it starts staying relatively clear. The tailwater starts to muddy up by the time its 3 miles downriver.
For those interested I have a blog post (“Chronicling the March 2008 Flood”) on some of the details at:
http://flyflinger.com/wpblog/I don’t fish the tailwaters during flood gate releases. Turbulence is too high. We had about 33,000 cfs in a channel usually seeing 9,000 cfs max. In 1992, the release was over 50,000 cfs for two weeks. It’s what did a major amount of habitat damage.
Once the flood gates are closed and the river stage returns to more normal levels, fishing is really good. We probably have some new numbers of stripers now also in the tailwater to catch out. Our state record striper comes out of Beaver tailwater at nearly 65 pounds. The biggest fish of my life I hooked about a month after a major flood release. It was a freight train that kept going to Missouri. We’ll see if I get another opportunity this year.
Scott
I really dissappointed in the lack of beaver…
Beaver Dam is a man made dam not a beaver dam, I was really hoping there would be dynamite and sticks and flooding.
Heres some beaver…
Nice shots Scott. That sure is a lot of water and I really like a lot of your photo’s on your site 🙂
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