8/12/09 River Level

[Ken G]

Now this is rare.
Because of all the rain up north the Fox came up and is now flowing at 884 cfs. Still very wadeable, but over 300 cfs faster than when I was out on Sunday.

The Kankakee at Wilmington is flowing at 775 cfs. I don't always look at the Kank gauge since I hardly ever go down there anymore, but this is the first time I've ever seen the Kanks speed slower than the Foxs.

This is still deceiving though. The Kank is about twice as wide and has many more deeper spots than I've encountered on the Fox. I'd probably still get myself in trouble.

My daughter is coming over for one last weekend before she heads down to U of I. We're going fishing Sunday. I may have to suggest a road trip.

[Dan]

The K3 is cats ass at times!! Get her in Rock Creek and make ur way to the waterfall??!! Always a fun time:)

[Ken G]

The stupid gauge is stuck at 884 cfs. Someone needs to go kick the debris off the gauge under the Mill Street Bridge. Looks like an Etch-a-Sketch® drawing of a side view of a table.

Been going to the Orchard Road stretch and continuously fishing over a mile and a half of it. Different part every time. Either its an exercise in futility or an experiment to see at what point the fish will turn on. When they do, it's outstanding.

See sample from June:



Besides, I drive right past it on my way home from work. Easy stop. Will have to do that tonight.

[Ken G]

Well, the Montgomery gauge is still stuck.

The other gauges show the river came down, but they don't show cfs. Which is totally useless to me.

Good guess it's down around 700 cfs, give or take a few.

I think that means to walk the pool below the Orchard Bridge, then comb the south shore till dark.

Yep, sounds like a plan.

[Ken G]

Okay, whoever stole the knob off the Montgomery gauge Etch-a-Sketch please return it immediately.

No questions will be asked.

[TackleBox]

Hey Ken, I'm gonna take a lazy man's way of attempting to find the answer to this question and just ask you. If anyone might have the answer, it would be you.

Do you know how to figure out CFS into MPH? The reason I ask is the majority of the books I've read on river fishing talk about MPH.

[Con-Solo]

Not sure if this applies to "cubic" feet per second but to calculate speed from FPS to MPH you multiply by .6818

Should be close.

I use this site for work, in addition to my handy dandy Parker Hannifin quick reference conversion card
http://www.chrismanual.com/Intro/convfact.htm

[Ken G]

I've never figured it out because I've got so used to CFS. I had an outdoors writer insist once that I give him the river speed in MPH. I told him I have no idea. He said to guess. So I threw something that floats on the water then walked along with it. I walk at about 3 MPH. So I told him it was flowing at 3 MPH.

Who knows really.

I have a converter widget on my computer. It lets me do FPS to MPH. Definitely not the same with CFS. It saying around 477 MPH. I don't think so.

Now we need something that will convert CFS to FPS so we can get the MPH.

I'm getting a headache.

I went to the Chrismanual. I'm sure there is a way to take some combination of a few calculations and get the result we're looking for. But what combination.

Where' my Excedrin for migraines.

Besides, I think all the exceptionally great river anglers go with the CFS reading. It's not a race you know, but volume.

[TackleBox]

Maaaaaan, I'm sorry I brought this up now.

After looking at that chart I thought I could work it by converting four different times but that ain't happenin'. I just wasted three sheets of paper, broke two pencils, replaced the batteries in my calculator once and all I got out of it was a walk to the fridge to get a beer and 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

I remember in Dan Gapen's book on river fishing, he always wrote in miles per hour but he was also always talking about being in a boat.

I guess if the flow knocks you down, it's fast and that's all you really need to know.

Sorry Ken. I'll buy ya a beer or a bottle of Excedrin. Your call.

Thanks for the attempt Con. Hey man, do you ever fish or do you just not like me?

[Ken G]

I guess if the flow knocks you down, it's fast and that's all you really need to know.

That's pretty much how I figure it. I've determined that even in the spots where I'm comfortable being in the water when it's high, 3500 is my limit. Came too close to being swept under laydowns with water faster than that.

I don't like pissing in my waders from fear.

Sorry Ken. I'll buy ya a beer or a bottle of Excedrin. Your call.

Sam Adams.

If Con or anyone else could figure it out, I'm curious now. Haven't thought about it in years, now I'll probably waste too much time looking.