Don t reservoir fluctuations ruin fishing for bass and crappie?
As long as we can provide stable flows during their nesting seasons, the resident fish are generally okay. Keeping those flows stable for nesting is built into our operating plan. Our goal is to keep Brownlee Reservoir within the top 10 feet during the peak of the bass nesting season in June. Interestingly, our studies show that crappie are more adversely affected by high flows. It seems that they spend most of their time in the middle of the reservoir and are carried downstream by the force of the current in high water years.
