USGS, Your Guide to Better Fishing
We are into a time of the year when local rivers become more important as a place to find many of our inshore fish. Snook and baby tarpon, two of my favorite species, have started to migrate into their winter haunts to seek protection as well as food. Have you ever driven to your favorite river for a day of fishing only to be surprised at the local conditions? High water, dirt and suspended particles, swift currents, and unexpected water temperatures can greet you. A call to a nearby tackle shop the day before can be helpful, but availability of reliable information is diminishing as these businesses are engulfed with increasing land development. Can we take the guess work out of this dilemma?
USGS, or U. S. Geological Survey, has a website that has a wealth of very useful information. When traveling a river, a monitoring station will frequently be seen that transmits real time information to this website making it instantly available. All rivers in Florida, as well as other states that have stations are identified. My favorite way of finding them is to go to the map of the state you are interested in where colored dots represent all of the monitors. When the cursor is placed on a dot, the river’s name, monitor location, gage height, and flood stage appear. A left click brings up a page that has this information in more detail showing graphs of the cubic feet per second discharge of the last week compared to the median daily statistics. A second graph shows the height in feet for the same period. Other graphs show precipitation and water temperature. This will save a lot of time as well as help you make an informed decision.
A trout fishing trip to Pennsylvania after a recent rain had a lot of the streams and smaller rivers swollen with muddy water. Several streams we considered had their origin at the base of an Army Corps of Engineers dam. A click onto the Pennsylvania site told us that two of the dams were storing water and had a water release that was close to the median level, which was the best for fishing. Going to the location with ideal water conditions allowed us to spend our time fishing perfect water rather than running from place to place hoping for a good result. In Florida, some dams contribute to a rivers flow and should be checked before you trailer your boat. A few minutes at my computer the morning of a trip has saved me on many occasions.
Google USGS and place their home page with your favorites. Do a little surfing on their site for even more great information. You now have another source to help you plan successful fishing trips.
