California water fowl

[KurtR]

I know water was scarce to start out but just wondering how much all this rain they have been talking about on the news is helping fill up some of those refuges

 

[SouthPaw]

Can't speak for the refuges as I hunt private, but I can say without a doubt its making a difference on general surface water everywhere for the birds. The entire west side of the Sac valley had basically no water anywhere before ~Christmas. Now, places are flooding up and the birds are finally moving around. They had been concentrated on the east side, particularly up by Durham and Chico since there was agricultural water allotment up there early season plus the Butte area duck clubs & refuges had water.

Some of the Sac River weirs have been flowing so I'd expect the bypasses and refuge flood areas should be getting lots more water right now.

 

[willidru]

I was empty until mid December, full now. Hunted Sanborn Slough last weekend and standing bling had 8” of water in it.

 

[David Gough]

Seems like feast or famine. Just saw Yolo was closed due to flooding.

 

[willidru]

Little Dry Creek and Sutter flooded out also.

 

[Cant hit em]

Grizzly was closed too , Hunted in the grasslands today and the road was foot and a half of water all the way to the parking lot.

 

[willfrye027]

Around the Fresno area we are having the best year I can remember. Birds showed up earlier and there are more of them than usual. Of course this year I can hardly hunt with my work schedule

 

[norcalrookie]

Butte, Glenn, yuba, sutter, and colusa everything is full full right now. It’s good to see a normal year up here. 7-9” since Christmas in this area so far.

 

[KurtR]

So whats the update listening to the news its seems as noah is about to show up

 

[Cant hit em]

Like 700” of snow has fallen and been raining like crazy for couple weeks sun was out today 3 more days of rain coming. I think i saw the ark float by my house. Enough water now farmers should get planted and have enough water for flood up , next season should be good

 

[Banded_spooney]

So whats the update listening to the news its seems as noah is about to show up

Stole these pics
Pic of Colusa above
Corning below


Sac and yuba are blown out. Feather went from 2,300 to 15k last week to 20k today. Inflow into oroville is like 80k. Lots is snow. Lots of water.

My buddies pulled the boards to drain their rice fields on 2/16. It’s been a month and there is actually more water in them now than there was in early February. There isn’t anywhere for it to drain.

 

[Banded_spooney]

In laws place in Mt shasta. This is only 4k ft at the base. imagine what it’s like at 13k


Three days of sun then back to non stop rain and snow.

 

[KurtR]

In laws place in Mt shasta. This is only 4k ft at the base. imagine what it’s like at 13k

View attachment 530838
Three days of sun then back to non stop rain and snow.

Are the tule lake and Kalamath refuges getting full. I saw a map the other day showing how much is still dry but don’t know how old it was.

 

[Banded_spooney]

Are the tule lake and Kalamath refuges getting full. I saw a map the other day showing how much is still dry but don’t know how old it was.

Frankly no… still snow on the ground we will see how it shakes out. I would hope it’s not bone dry this year like it was last year but it’s not looking great.

 

[KurtR]

Frankly no… still snow on the ground we will see how it shakes out. I would hope it’s not bone dry this year like it was last year but it’s not looking great.

View attachment 530891

Thats crazy with the way the news is making it sound out there.

 

[Banded_spooney]

Thats crazy with the way the news is making it sound out there.

Unfortunately I don’t know a ton about that watershed to really explain it, but most of the drainages feeding the Klamath and the wood and those other rivers that come into Klamath lake above the refuge still have a lot of snow.

I can’t say for sure but I’m guessing they aren’t blown out like our valley rivers. We had snow to the valley floor a week ago and now the snow level is 2k feet so we just had a ton of melt enter our rivers at once after 2.5” of rain fell in the valley plus whatever crazy high amount was falling up to 6k feet.

Plus the only reason you are seeing it on the news because the ‘atmospheric river’ was actually centered in the Bay Area and actually moved south a bit so it hit population centers the hardest. Not necessarily the places that have water storage and certainly not southern Oregon.

Knowing how much rain we got and how much flooding, I’d expect that what you saw on the news was fairly accurate about what ppl were dealing with in their Prius south of here