The short answer is no.
The mean outflow during the month of July was 1,227 cfs from 1970-2000 and 1,173 cfs from 2001-2023. Mean outflow during August was 1,173 cfs in the 1970-2000 period and 920 cfs in the 2001-2023 period.
Outflow may seem higher for two reasons:
1) Aquatic plant abundance is much higher now than it was decades ago, which makes the water deeper at a given outflow.
2) Turbidity is higher now than it was decades ago, so the water appears deeper than it really is because it’s harder to see the bottom of the river.
The reasons for higher macrophyte growth and higher turbidity are somewhat complex but can be roughly boiled down to changing climate and increased nutrient concentrations, the latter most likely tied to development.
1) Irrigation diversion is around 20% lower than it was in the 1970s-1990s as a result of increased irrigation efficiency, primarily conversion from flood irrigation to sprinkler irrigation. HFF recently published a groundbreaking paper on this subject.
2) Water management has become much more precise over the past 10 years due to remote-controlled irrigation technology and a lot more stream and canal gaging. In the Henry’s Fork watershed, we led the technological advances and funding acquisition that made this possible.
Since the start of Precision Management efforts in 2018, the amount of water left in Island Park Reservoir at the end of the irrigation season has exceeded expectations based on water supply by 26,000 ac-ft/year (over 10,000 Olympic swimming pools worth of water). This has been accompanied by a 100-cfs decrease in summertime outflow, despite the fact that water supply is 15% lower than it was in the 1970s-1990s. If we had the same water supply we had in the 70s-90s, it’s fathomable that we would hardly use any reservoir storage at all these days.
I know my last blog post left you on the edge of your seat. Today I’m going to answer the question that has doubtlessly been on everyone’s minds: did I catch a fish? Let me tell you, it was getting down to the wire. I’d been out many times with the incredibly patient Claude, to no avail. Not even a bite. Claude’s patience was really commendable as I stubbornly, astoundingly refused to improve.
As my time here at the foundation wraps up, I have been doing a lot of reflection. As such, I have concluded that the amount you can learn in one summer internship is unrivaled. It can range from scientific technical skills to office interpersonal skills, and anywhere in between. Some things are self-explanatory, and some are learned through trial and error. This range is what makes internships so valuable. I’ve compiled a list of the
Putting in the hours. Credit: Estelle Edwards Fish are omnipresent. Whether Claude’s talking about his latest catch, an angler is asking me what fly to use (I don’t know), or I’m taking Utah suckers out of gillnets, I am drowning in fish… but I have never caught one. I have yet to be blessed with a bite on a Parachute Adams, Zebra Midge, or Montreal Whore, but thanks to fishing-adjacent research experiences, I’ve gotten a
I grew up fishing on the North Carolina coast. From flounder and speckled trout (not actually in the trout family) deep in the creeks to Spanish mackerel and bull redfish right off the beach, all the way out to what feels like the middle of the ocean trolling for king mackerel and cobia, I loved the wide variety of fish. One sunny July morning a few summers back, my dad and I headed offshore in
