Snow and ski news from Colorado
A snowstorm hit Wolf Creek Wednesday morning.
It’s already snow skiing season in Colorado.
A few Colorado ski resorts are now open and were greeted with fresh snowfall Wednesday morning, including the Loveland Ski Area which reported 14 inches of new snow.
Loveland has five runs open and is running one lift. Arapahoe Basin received 8 inches of fresh snow and has two runs open and is operating one lift.
Wolf Creek, the first resort in Colorado to open for skiing on Oct. 8, received 14 inches from the snow storm thus far. Wolf Creek is currently open on weekends and will be open Monday for Halloween.
Other Colorado resorts have scheduled openings in November and December, including Copper Mountain which opens Nov. 4 and received seven inches of new snow and Winter Park which opens Nov. 16 and received 15 inches of new snow.
Snow totals and opening dates for other resorts include SolVista Basin, 11 inches and Dec. 14; Sunlight, 10 inches and Dec. 2; Ski Cooper, nine inches and opens Nov 24 for weekends and Dec. 16 for the season; Copper Mountain, seven inches and Nov. 4; Crested Butte, seven inches and Nov. 23; Steamboat, five inches and Nov. 23;
For more information, visit www.ColoradoSki.com.
What will happen to the Lower Illinois?
Paddlefish were just one of the fish species found dead in the Lower Illinois River on Oct. 7.
The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation has been stocking trout-year round in the Lower Illinois River since 1965, but that may end permanently if something isn’t done to solve the water problems on the river.
“It’s hard to manage a trout fishery if you don’t have any water,” said Barry Bolton, chief of fisheries for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
State wildlife officials have already temporarily ceased stocking trout in the Lower Illinois River and there are no plans to resume in the near future.
Oklahoma is in danger of losing one of its two year-round trout fisheries. A town hall meeting has been scheduled Thursday night in Sallisaw by local elected officials to discuss the problem.
The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at the Indian Capital Technology Center. Fisheries personnel from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation are slated to make a short presentation of the issues and possible solutions.
The water woes on the Lower Illinois are convoluted. Without regular releases of water from Lake Tenkiller, the river gets low and oxygen levels drop to lethal levels.
In years past, the Lower Illinois River has received a small but steady stream of water from a leak in the Tenkiller Dam’s sluice gate, but that leak has been repaired, ending that lifeblood for the river.
The river gets water releases from Tenkiller Lake when the Southwestern Power Administration is generating hydroelectric power, but that fluctuates based on power demands.
Unlike on the Lower Mountain Fork River, the trout fishery in the Lower Illinois is not entitled to any of the water stored in Lake Tenkiller. It’s all allocated for hydropower or municipal and industrial water supply.
State wildlife officials are borrowing water that belongs to Sequoyah Fuels and used that to keep the stream and the trout fishery alive during the summer drought.
Now, the river is often very low with little flow and there was a fish kill due to low oxygen levels earlier this month. Without regular water releases from power generation, the river becomes nothing more than shallow pools separated by a few rocks.
“ODWC uses all of the water it has access to on a daily basis by requesting two hours of generation a day,” said Jim Burroughs, northeast fisheries chief for the agency. “That uses up our daily allotment of inflows. That release coupled with a release from (the Southwest Power Administration) at least every two or thee days keeps it from going dry. If (Southwest Power Administration) decides to not generate for many days, which it sometimes does, then the river has the potential to be nothing but a bunch of potholes.”
Six years ago, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation bought 320 acres of land around the Lower Illinois for a public hunting and fishing area called the Simp and Helen Watts Management Unit.
There is some archery deer hunting and small game hunting on the Lower Illinois Public Fishing and Hunting Area, but the main reason the wildlife department bought the land was for its access to the river and trout fishing.
The Wildlife Department hired engineers to develop plans to renovate that portion of the Lower Illinois River and make it much like Evening Hole on the Lower Mountain Fork, a swifter-moving trout stream with ideal trout habitat.
Those engineers drew up the plans but no habitat work was done and none is scheduled because of the water problems. Bolton said the department has turned down offers to buy additional land along the Lower Illinois River for the same reason.
“We have little interest in acquiring additional land until we can resolve water quality issues in the Lower Illinois River,” Bolton said.
Let’s hope all the money the Wildlife Department has already spent hasn’t been thrown down the river as well.
Murray County trophy buck
Tyler Winters of Purcell took this 14-point buck on the opening day of Oklahoma's archery deer season. Send your fishing and hunting photos to egodfrey@opubco.com.
New wildlife license plates
Oklahoma's new striped bass wildlife license plate
Oklahoma drivers have three new wildlife specialty plates available for purchase: the Texas horned lizard, the mallard duck and the striped bass.
The three new plates became available this month and join six other wildlife plates currently available at local tag agencies: the whitetail deer, the scissor-tailed flycatcher, the largemouth bass, bobwhite quail, wild turkey and rainbow trout. The price is $38 and they can be ordered from the Oklahoma Tax Commission.
Of the wildlife license plates, the whitetail deer is the most popular seller, said Rachel Bradley of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
Money from the sales of the wildlife plates go to a Wildlife Department fund that helps manage non-game species (those that are not hunted or fished) in the state like the Texas horned lizard, Bradley said.
“It’s been kind of an iconic species in Oklahoma,” Bradley said of the lizard. “The Texas horned lizard is very popular in Oklahoma.”
I’m guessing the striper plate will be popular around Lake Texoma. Personally, I think a black bear plate would be good seller now that Oklahoma has a black bear hunting season and their population is expanding in the state.
But Bradley said the Wildlife Department doesn’t have any timetable on when other wildlife specialty plates will be released.
The Wildlife Department wants to see how well the new ones sell before planning to issue any more, she said.
The Texas horned lizard wildlife license plate
Deer hunter kills Hogzilla
Don’t think there are huge wild hogs in the state?
This 760-pound wild hog was killed by a deer hunter near Rush Springs.
Early last week Winston Brown took his crossbow and climbed up into a tree stand near Rush Springs in hope of harvesting his first deer of the season.
Instead he came home with 760 pounds of wild hog. It took three arrows from Brown’s crossbow to kill the beast, which is perhaps the largest feral swine ever killed in Oklahoma.
That morning Brown had his eye on three does in the area when they seemed to be frightened off when the hog appeared.
‘I’ve seen a lot of hogs in this area, but nothing like the size of this one,” Brown told the Lawton Constitution. “He was doing a lot of damage.”
Wild hogs like this one and the damage they cause are whyy the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry has started a Feral Swine Directory to try to connect hog hunters with landowners who are willing to allow hog hunting on their land.
Application forms for hunters, trappers and interested landowners can be downloaded from the agency’s website.
The agency hopes the online directory will be another tool to help farmers and ranchers deal with wild hogs which cause millions of dollars in damage each year in Oklahoma.
Feral hogs can be found in all 77 counties in Oklahoma.
The animals are omnivorous and will eat anything from grain to meat. Cultivated crops make up a large part of their diet, but they also prey on ground-nesting birds, like quail and turkey.
Feral swine even will kill and consume lambs and kid goats. Crops commonly damaged by wild hogs include wheat, sorghum, soybeans, corn, peanuts, hay, watermelons, pecans and vegetable gardens.
State agriculture officials hope more hunting and trapping will reduce wild hog numbers or at least help control their spread.
Canton Lake to be lowered
This Oklahoman file photo shows a view looking down the North Canadian River channel just above a gate at Canton Lake during a previous water release several years ago.
Canton Lake will be lowered more than five feet in the upcoming days to meet water supply needs in Oklahoma City.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began releasing 30,000-acre feet of water from Canton Lake, located about 90 miles northwest of Oklahoma City, into the North Canadian River on Tuesday morning.
Most of the water will be captured in Oklahoma City Lakes Hefner and Overholser. The rest will be absorbed in the riverbed.
The released water will reach Oklahoma City in about five days and take about two weeks to complete.
The move will impact recreation at Canton Lake as the lake level will fall below the boat ramps and rip-rap along the dam.
However, providing drinking water in times of drought takes priority over recreational use, officials said.
The Oklahoma City Water Utilities Trust has used water from Canton Lake since the 1950s.
A tale of two trout streams
Jamie Webster of Pauls Valley tries his luck at fly fishing last Thursday in the Lower Mountain Fork River. (Photo by Donny Carter)
The fall crappie bite is on, the smallmouth bass have been biting at Lake Murray and the dry fly fishing has been great on the Lower Mountain Fork River in southeastern Oklahoma.
Those are the fish stories I have been hearing lately. Fall is normally a great time to go trout fishing in Oklahoma.
Donny Carter of Stratford, a regular visitor to the Lower Mountain Fork in McCurtain County, said the trees were starting to show signs of color last Thursday and the fishing was splendid.
He and his fishing buddy, Jamie Webster of Pauls Valley, caught and released 40 trout that day.
“I caught 24 trout for the day and seven of them were browns,” Carter said. “The dry fly fishing here lately and even during the heat of the summer has been fantastic. Just the past couple of weeks, I caught some very nice browns.”
One brown caught on Spillway Creek by Carter measured more than 17 inches.
“The brown trout fishing on Spillway has been the best I’ve seen since the mid-1990’s,” Carter said.
A trout stream without trout
The same can’t be said for the trout fishing on Oklahoma’s other year-round trout stream – the Lower Illinois River near Gore.
Two weeks ago, state wildlife officials stopped their regular stocking of trout in the river because of water issues.
Without regular releases of water from Lake Tenkiller, the river gets low and oxygen levels drop to lethal levels. The river has been going as long as two or three days with no water releases from Tenkiller and last week it suffered a fish kill.
Paddlefish, blue catfish, channel catfish, walleye, largemouth and smallmouth bass, drum buffalo, shad, gar and trout were the species of dead fish found along the river.
“We didn’t know we were going to lose the native population,” said Barry Bolton, chief of fisheries for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, which halted the trout stockings for fear the trout would not survive.
Unlike on the Lower Mountain Fork River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can’t release water from Lake Tenkiller to sustain the trout fishery.
All of the stored water in Tenkiller is allocated for hydropower or municipal or industrial water supply.
State wildlife officials had been borrowing water allocated to Sequoyah Fuels, but they have used all of that water to keep the stream flowing through the summer drought when there was no hydropower generation.
Trout Unlimited clubs in Oklahoma have urged the state’s Congressional delegation to intervene to ensure the trout fishery is entitled to water from Lake Tenkiller when needed.
The river is running dry and without Congressional action, the future looks bleak for the trout fishing on the Lower Illinois River.
Attention Arcadia Lake anglers
Ron Temple caught this 8-pound, 6-ounce largemouth bass at Arcadia Lake in September.
State wildlife officials will present its five year management plan for Arcadia Lake on Wednesday.
The public meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the Arcadia Outdoor Education Training Center, 7201 E. 33rd St. in Edmond.
To get there, take I-35 north or south to Memorial Road, head east two miles to Midwest Boulevard. Then turn north and go one mile to E. 33rd St.
The training center driveway is 250 feet to your right. State wildlife officials are asking visitors to park in the gravel parking lot next to the green roofed building.
The presentation will cover historical survey data for game fish populations, fish stocking records, habitat enhancement activities, past and future boating / fishing access projects and future fish population manipulation strategies.
Comments, questions and suggestions from anglers are welcome and encouraged during the meeting. For more information, call fishery biologist Keith Thomas at 325-7288.
Arcadia Lake trophy buck
Matt Dodson of Yukon harvested this 17-point buck at Arcadia Lake near Edmond
Matt Dodson of Yukon has participated in the archery hunts at Arcadia Lake in Edmond for several years and has harvested some does while afield, but this season produced a trophy buck.
Dodson arrowed this 17-point, 166-pound buck on Oct. 4, the last evening of his four-day hunt.
There are 25 hunting zones in the 5,300-acre wildlife management area around Arcadia Lake.
Arcadia Lake officials hold a drawing for hunt dates before the archery season and any remaining dates are filled on a first come, first serve basis.
There are still hunting dates left to be filled in the bow season at Arcadia Lake which runs through Dec. 31.
Last year, hunters killed 36 deer at Arcadia Lake.
For more information, visit www.arcadialakeok.com or call the Arcadia Lake office at 216-7470.
Chat with the OWMA president
I will have a guest for Friday’s monthly online chat from the H&H Shooting Sports Complex,.
Allen Bynum, president of the Oklahoma Wildlife Management Association, will join me to answer any questions about the organization and its activities.
After the online chat from 11:30 a.m. until noon, Bynum and I will be at H&H until 1 p.m. for anyone who prefers a face-to-face discussion of the issues.
The OWMA started in 2007 with a group of landowners in southern Oklahoma who stayed busy during the deer seasons chasing poachers off their property, Bynum said.
The group successfully lobbied for tougher trespassing laws with harsher penalties.
OWMA is a very pro-hunting organization and is active in promoting youth deer hunts. Its membership is diverse and now includes landowners and Oklahoma sportsmen with hunting leases, Bynum said.
You can participate in the live chat Friday by logging into NewsOk.com and visiting the Outdoors page.
