As I mentioned in the previous post, I spent three days last week in the Ochoco mountains helping ODFW and USFS personnel survey fish populations in various small creeks. Jerry George, ODFW’s Deschutes District Fish Biologist, was part of the survey work and while there was contacted to ask about lowering the Upper Deschutes to allow for the ongoing search for a missing person presumed drowned below Dillion Falls. Of course, he voiced no opposition with the caveat that flows in the Middle Deschutes not also be lowered. I was thankful for that but have been watching to see what would really happen. Looking at the charts, it looks like there was very little impact on the Middle Deschutes.

The chart above shows flows at the BENO gauge above Bend and the chart below shows flows at the DEBO gauge just below Bend. The Middle Deschutes continues to suffer from extremely low flows compared to what naturally would be in the river and even a small reduction could have a significant impact on the population of aquatic insects, the primary food source for resident fish.