Missouri River Water Advisory Board Meeting Update 2024

Attended the Annual Meeting with above title Monday April 8th. Always informative the 5 member speaking group presented the current upper river/lake report for fish including perch, walleye, and rainbow populations, DEQ presented water conditions throughout the upper Missouri River system, NW Energy presented dam updates and a conversation about water flows through the dam system here on the Missouri River, bug stats too, and the DNRC presented the river flow predictions for ’24.

Bottom line? 4100cfs for the summer.

In January the predictions were much lower. February much lower. March, not as bad, April looking fair! Maybe May will bring us even more water in our system. Had 1″-3″ of rain fall on our region this past weekend, some sleet, some snow too.

Late April is the period that the water planners use to predict the following 12 month water supply. Again, looking considerably better than as recent as a month ago.

Most probable are the bars in red. We like it.

That is about the long and short of it. Also at the meeting were the trout numbers for the last year. They are up. Approximately 7K catchable rainbows per mile in the Craig reach. About 1500/mile in the Cascade reach. More on this data soon. The Craig reach has a historic high number of catchable trout.

Come by and see us in Craig at the closest shop to the river! Open daily at 8am, shuttles, guide trips, the best in outerwear from Orvis, Skwala, NRS, Steelie Zips! SZ, and more. HH Logo gear coming in daily. Sunscreen, the Best Flies Under the Big Sky including tons of new patterns to make those trout go crazy, all kinds of bobbers in all kinds of flavors, along with the friendly fly shop staff in downtown Craig!