THE ANNUAL low Dissolved Oxygen watch is back on again, with the AGFC having to rejig its restocking program on Norfork already, simply because of poor water quality coming out of Norfork Dam.
The situation, as per normal, isn’t as bad on the White but is being closely watched. But it becomes pretty frustrating year after year to sit back and watch the USACE flaunt State water quality standards over some truly tremendous fisheries.If it were you or I metaphorically piddling into the Norfork, you can bet your last $ there would be injunctions to cease and desist, fines, and so on.
There was a tremendous hue and cry, rightly, over the Overlook Estate debacle where a private developer allowed a huge volume of sediment to be washed into Norfork, and some substantial fines resulted. But from my own observations the severe low DO period of ’08 cause way, way more damage to the Norfork fishery than the inflow of sediment _ Norfork fished well during ’08 up until the low DO hit, despite the sediment, and massive flood releases. It was during extended low DO period things went downhill, there was a school of thought that low DO levels has pushed the quality fish out into the White.
The ’08 low DO season is also significant for like this year, there was significant spring flooding bringing more organic material than normal into the lakes. Its the breakdown of organic material in the depths of our lakes that “eats” up the dissolved oxygen. Norfork Lake, which also waters the Norfork National Fish hatchery, get lower DO levels and causes more problems than occurs on the bigger White River.
On July 14 oxygen levels on Norfork fell below the State minimum of 6ppm, triggering the opening of breaker vents to help the oxygen levels, but the DO levels continued to drop. By August 18, the AGFC had halted stocking on the Upper end of the River. All trout scheduled for stocking over the length of the river are s now only being conducted at Cook’s (at the lower end of the Trophy Zone) and at Rose’s Trout Dock just above the confluence, where DO levels have risen.
AGFC trout biologist Jeff Williams said yesterday that the the Corp has also reduced the maximum flow to 83% this week, to help increase the oxygenation of water through the Norfork turbines. He also said the picture was deteriorating at Bull Shoals.
The dissolved oxygen levels at Bull Shoals dropped below 6 ppm back on August 9th at which time the vacuum breakers were blocked open. Although no further actions have been taken at Bull Shoals, the DO readings continue to stay below 6ppm and at times have dropped into the mid to upper 4’s. I will be going out later this week on Bull Shoals to determine if stocking restrictions are needed.
We will continue to monitor the dissolved oxygen at both dams very closely.
Now if you have been out on Bull Shoals this week, you might be wondering what is going, on the fish have been eating well, fighting hard and more importantly recovering quickly. Simply its not like flicking a switch and the fishing turns off or massive fish kills.
The slow decline in Do levels on the White increases stress levels on the fish and their condition declines, they start eating less and they lose more weight. If you spend time on the water with our guides, or fish yourself, you will still catch fish here, perhaps some very good quality fish.
You can have a very good time.
But that’s not the whole point _ which is what sort of fishery could we have without the stresses of 2-3 months of Low DO, how good could it be now. How much bigger would the fish be, how much more eagerly would they be eating at the Dam and of course how many more trout might come through the spawn.
One day hopefully we will know.
