Benchmarking Your Local Stream and Spring Thoughts

Benchmarking. Not sure if that's a real word. I know many people use the United States Geologic Survey's (USGS) website to monitor stream flow of rivers they fish. Here is a link to a gauge on the Clinton River, near the Oakland County, Macomb County border: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mi/nwis/uv?site_no=04161540

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I have never fished the Clinton River, but I have lived in its watershed my whole life. After attending a "river rally" thrown by the Clinton River Watershed Council (http://www.crwc.org/) earlier this month, I am interested in actually fishing this local stream.

Side note, Clinton Valley Trout Unlimited's banquet is tomorrow night at River Crest Banquet Center. It will be my first TU banquet. I sure hope to win something. God knows I've bought plenty of raffle tickets through the years. I would think the odds are getting in my favor by now.

Two days ago (March 19th, 2014) I drove to a couple access points along on the Clinton River and took some pictures. It was also raining on and off all day. Hey, it beats snow at this point.

 This was taken at Yates Park, looking upstream. Notice the large log

Here is a panoramic shot of the same area. Neat iPhone feature

This is a view a couple miles downstream, near Coyote Joe's bar

Here's the bar. Have a brew, do a little line dancing, and then maybe another type of line dance... with a steelhead (oh sorry, lake run rainbow trout)

Looking upstream, at Ryan Road

When I got home, I brought up the hydrograph from the USGS website. I captured a screenshot of the graph.

Notice that the river is on its way up

I doubt I am sharing anything new or revolutionary with you. However, I thought that I would snap a few photos and look at the river data to really understand what the river looks like at certain discharge levels. The river didn't appear to be moving super fast, and I cannot tell if ran high, but it did look discolored. Now when I revisit the stream, I'll be able to see how the banks and logs compare to this last visit.

I thought it might also be of a little interest to see how your local rivers compare in size and discharge to what we have here in Southeast Michigan.

In other news, I help a friend out from time to time and cover for him at his gym. Since nothing is going on there (frequently), I decided to bring a little travel assortment of fly tying materials, hook, and a vise. When I wasn't cleaning and getting huge myself (sarcastic) at the gym, here is what I produced. They are a couple varieties of streamers from Kelly Galloup and Bob Linsenman's "Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout"

My crude version of a Zoo Cougar. Yes, I need to practice my deer stacking techniques. And yes, this is after I trimmed the heads. Yikes!

 And on the home front, the toys are screaming for me to take them out. Probably two or three more weeks until Stoney Creek Lake thaws. Your guess is as good as mine.

And it looks like we have some new neighbors. These are in the driveway, which I think is weird because we are not on a lake, pond, or stream... or golf course.

Happy Spring everybody. Hope your weather is a little more seasonal than ours!