Fishing Oroville Lake 12/15/2015

[Tom Gronwall]

Dang, was it ever cold fishing today. 33 degrees when I left home. Started bad, got the trailer into the water, went to take the boat off and water went over my boots, now wet feet!! Got the boat in the water, going to take the trailer up, can't find my keys!! Looked everywhere, no keys, checked the boat, checked my pocket 10 times, crawled around in the dark looking for keys on the ground. Now what am I going to do, can't move the car out of the way. Did a last check and keys were in my pocket all along! Felt pretty silly! Only caught 6 fish, one nicer 4-5 pound catfish, but battery wend dead on the camera, so let the fish go, then changed battery. Fingers hurt, only thing cold this morning. Smaller fish in the picture. Ramp is shallow, making you have to back further into the water, need tall boots if alone!!

[Robber65]

Sounds like all my fishing trips. Nice to see it happens to others. Have they started extending bidwell ramp yet ?????

[Tom Gronwall]

I have no clue, never go near that ramp since it ran out of concrete.

[J.Bubier]

Great job posting Oroville stories, keep up the good work. Yes they have started extending the Bidwell ramp, should take 2-4 weeks depending on weather....
Happy Holidays and good fishing.

[Tom Gronwall]

News said the lake hit the low, now on the way back up!! better hurry up on the ramp!

[reddog]

Are they "extending" with concrete? I ask because I've seen the temp dams in the delta with the cabled together blocks and it seems that would be way fast and efficient. If they were so inclined.

[Tom Gronwall]

The plan is to extend bidwell ramp with concrete, delayed start, but supposed to begin soon. With the coming weather, they may not be able to extend the ramp if rains keep coming and the lake keeps coming up on levels. Time will tell!!!

[Rick K of Ca]

Ramp work underway


Increasing water levels may be a challenge to crews working to extend a concrete boat ramp at Bidwell Canyon Marina. Dossey said the $320,000 project to extend the ramp nearly 16 feet deeper into the lake should be completed as designed if the lake rises an average of 6 inches per day over the month-long project.
Any faster and only part of the ramp will be completed because the project permit doesn’t allow work in the water, according to Dossey.
Recent conditions have been favorable for the project. Dossey noted water levels increased only 3 feet in the last week rather than 5 or 6 feet.
“We got less rainfall than was predicted out of the last two storms,” he said.
Crews began working on extending the stage 3 ramp Friday. Work was originally scheduled to begin Dec. 9, but Dossey attributed the delay to issues obtaining a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to work within the lake bed.
Workers are excavating the site and getting rock fill into place, according to Dossey. The first concrete pour is scheduled for next week and a total of 106 linear feet of concrete should be in place by the end of the month.
If completed as planned, there will be three, 15-foot wide lanes extending to an elevation of 660 feet. There is a separate 8-foot section to dedicated for a boarding float.
Dossey said the extension would be similar to other concrete boat ramps at the lake and accommodate similar vehicles. If the ramp extension was available this year, Dossey said a concrete ramp would have been available to boaters into October instead of being out of water in August.
When the concrete ramps are out of service, boaters are able to use gravel ramps at Bidwell Canyon and Spillway. Access was limited to four-wheel-drive vehicles and Bidwell Canyon’s gravel ramp closed last month.
In the future, Dossey said it was likely officials wouldn’t open the gravel ramp at Spillway until the Bidwell Canyon ramp extension is out of water.
Project funding is coming from the department’s discretionary funding. The ramp extension was agreed to as part of the ongoing federal relicencing of Oroville Dam. While the relicencing is still pending, DWR management authorized moving ahead on the ramp project as it will help local residents, boaters and other recreational users.
While the current ramp project aims to go down to 660 feet, there are plans to extend access to 640 feet. Dossey said removing water around the site may be necessary to reach that depth. Such dewatering could cost at least $1 million.

[Robber65]

Thanks for the ramp info Rick. With any luck it will be ready for Jan 9th WWBT

[Tom Gronwall]

News just said the lake came up 5ft as of today, maybe yesterday, not sure. It's a growing!

[Larry Hemphill]

As of 10 pm Monday evening, Grass Valley had nearly 4 inches of rain. If that is close to what the Oroville area runoff area is - which includes more rain tonight, the lake may come up very quickly over the area of the new ramp extension. Remember, Oroville filled in the first year it was opened - 1968!

[Tom Gronwall]

Lake has come up to 656.29 from the low of 649.51, a 6.78 foot gain, keep it coming. As of 12/21/15

[Tom Gronwall]

Nice, lake at 659.62, now 10.11 foot gain as of 12/22/15, keep it coming!

[Tom Gronwall]

Water still coming up nicely, as of yesterday, water at 662.51 ft. making it a 13 foot gain from low water mark. Bet fishing is going to be interesting next week. My guess not so good!!