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Mark Freeman's Commentary Applegate Lake leaves sports-anglers high and dry When people ask John McKelligott anything about Applegate Lake this winter, he simply shakes his head. "We don�t have one," he says. "It�s the lake that isn�t." What Applegate Lake isn�t these days is accessible to the hundreds of sport-anglers who rely on boats to stalk the stocked trout, land-locked salmon and the immense largemouth bass that make the lake the apple of local bass-lovers� eyes. There is well over 100 yards of mud between the bottom of the lowest boat ramp and the surface of Applegate Lake, and it�s dropping every day to depths only the fish have seen in the lake�s 22-year existence. The drought-like conditions, during the late-winter period when the lake normally fills, is literally leaving sport-fishermen high and dry and relegated to casting from the bank. This Southern Oregon reservoir, where anglers are sure the next state-record bass will be caught as early as this summer, has been inaccessible to boat anglers all winter and could remain so most of this summer if the water doesn�t rise appreciably or the end of the boat ramp doesn�t drop farther down to the water. McKelligott can�t bring the water closer to the boat ramp. That�s up to nature and its official reins-holder, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which built the lake. So McKelligott wants to bring the boat ramp closer to the water. McKelligott, who is the public services supervisor for the Rogue River National Forest�s Applegate Ranger District, is lobbying his bosses for permission and money to extend the lake�s lowest boat ramp at French Gulch. He wants to build a packed-gravel ramp from the base to as close as possible to the lake�s current water level so boat-fishermen can return this spring and summer. The idea is to give anglers a chance to launch their fishing boats as soon as the mountains� minuscule snowpack starts melting appreciably and raising the reservoir in southwest Jackson County. McKelligott�s plan may be too tough to tackle for the cash-strapped Rogue Forest. But it�s something Rob Shull, recreation staff officer, says his crew needs to consider. McKelligott believes it�s the only way to keep Applegate Lake from becoming a recreator�s ghost town. "It�s such a vibrant fishery that seeing it so low, and still going down, is depressing." McKelligott says. "Grandma and Grandpa haven�t been able to come out here in their boat and go fishing all year, and it looks like it�s going to get worse," he says. "It�s pretty grim." The grim reality is that the Rogue River basin has a snowpack of just 43 percent of average, and a current waterflow into the high-elevation lake that looks more like late summer than late winter. The reservoir resembles more a moonscape than a lake. The water�s surface is 117 feet below full and about 68 feet lower than what it�s supposed to be today under the Corps� late-winter filling schedule. That�s almost the height of a seven-story building. Unfortunately, the lake is actually dropping. With a flow-in of just 89 cubic feet per second, and an outflow of an ultra-low 119 cfs, the lake is dropping 50 acre-feet a day. The lake level has not been this low since 1979, when the upper Applegate River was first impounded behind the new Applegate Dam. For summer swimmers, that means no water at any of the normal swimming spots this year. If that�s not a drought, McKelligott says, then nothing is. "Nobody is using the �D� word," McKelligott says. "But, boy Howdy, it sure looks like we�re headed there." Lowell and Donna Norris, of Medford, regularly hike the few hundred yards through mud to reach the lake to catch trout. They say they�ve seen the water level drop four feet in the past three weeks. "I�ve never seen this lake this low, and it�s hard to believe it�s even getting lower," Lowell Norris says. "I used to fish here with my dad when it was a creek," Norris says, pointing around the upstream corner of the dam. "Now, the creek�s just right up there." That leaves bass anglers like Paul Rethwish really up the creek. Bass fishermen like Rethwish, a tournament angler from Grants Pass, use big and expensive boats to motor along the lake�s outer rim to cast toward the edges. Fishing from shore is barely feasible and rarely successful. Many of the lake�s largemouth bass hover in that 8-10 pound category, and spring fishing often brings out the biggest of the bass. "But I guess this means we won�t be fishing Applegate for a year," Rethwish says. "That�s sad, really sad." So sad, in fact, that Southern Oregon bass anglers will have to gulp their provincial pride and head south to fish. "We�ll have to go to Iron Gate or Shasta to get quality fish," Rethwish says. Even the trout fishermen will suffer. While bank fishing is common for trout, anglers will be fishing for fewer of them. Cole Rivers Hatchery trucks can�t get down through the mud and back out safely enough to stock the 10,000 legal-size trout, the 800 big "lunker" trout and the 150,000 salmon fingerings into Applegate this year. "We�ll just have to take those fish somewhere else," says Matt Frank, the hatchery�s assistant manager. Even the Corps� most optimistic Pollyannas say the lake will get no closer than 24 feet from full this year �which would mean the level would have to rise 97 feet between now and May. McKelligott believes the water will eventually rise the requisite 30 feet to wet the bottom of the low-water concrete ramp at French Gulch. But without the gravel extension, the lake likely will quickly drop back down to where the water would, again, be inaccessible to boats. "If we could do this, it would make the lake accessible for the summer," McKelligott says. "It wouldn�t be great, just accessible." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at: [email protected] ) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.