According to the National Weather Service, water levels in the upper Mississippi drainage are at near-record winter highs. I was surprised at how high the streams were when I went out on December 10. A combination of a single major snowfall which rapidly melted (in November), saturating much of the pore space above the water table, and an unusual amount of winter rainfall is what’s responsible. Essentially, a lot of the precipitation that would normally infiltrate and become groundwater is instead running off into streams.
I aimed to fish on winter solstice, which falls late on the 21st this year, just to say I had. Academic responsibilities nixed that, but I headed out for a full day on the 22nd, somehow managing to get on the road on the right side of 7 am. My initial plan was to spend the entire day at STSNBN, which I hadn’t fished in earnest since August. I hoped the high water levels would actually help it, as it had been down to a trickle in the Fall. As I proceeded, though, I began to have doubts. Every trickle on the roadside had turned into a significant stream, far higher than I’d ever seen. When I crossed the Wapsipinicon at Quasqueton, it was raging, the steps upstream from the highway bridge not visible in frothing whitewater (well, more brownwater). I decided to stop at the closest potentially fishable water, which was the bridge over the Maquoketa I’d thought about fishing on the last trip. The stream was very clear, gin clear, but very, very high. I geared up and had a brief go. I got one follow from a trout in the first downstream pool, but soon lost heart. I don’t know the stream at all, and it felt like trying to box with a blindfold on. The Maquoketa has a mostly sandy bottom and not very much structure. The high water made a lot of marginal areas look like nice pools. I feel like I need to get a handle on it under normal conditions before trying to wring something out of it when things are stressed.
After that I headed to STSNBN. This stream has proven to be highly sensitive to increased runoff – it must have to do with the geometry of its upstream drainage and valley. Sure enough, it was pounding pretty good, though mostly clear. There was plenty of evidence that it had seen a major flood in the past week, with a lot of the dead streamside growth blasted out.
