I wish I had all good news for you, but once again we will be experiencing challenging conditions on the West Branch. Let’s start with flows. The Labor Day weekend party is over as they’ve jacked up the dam release to 1,100cfs:
And we’re back to water temperature rearing its ugly head. Look how the release temp spiked with the increased flow:
In a word, ugh. There’s nothing to be done about the flow increase, as the MDC needs to maintain a certain safe reservoir level in case of hurricanes. But the news isn’t all bad. Torrey Collins says the Still River is actually a cooling influence, and the long range forecast calls for overnight lows mostly in the upper 50s, so that’s going to help. Who knows when the DEEP will stock, or if they’ll even do a Survivor Strain broodstock gathering. I’ll do my best to keep you posted. In the meantime, I’m heading for the salt.
currentseams.com 
does this res. have a spill way? Down south (NY) and I know they are bigger impoundments
you hear about them dumping water (especially in the spring) through the spill way. Cold water stays where it’s supposed to stay. So why not here?
I don’t know, Jim. I think they have the capacity to dump water from the top of the dam. But none of it matters right now because there is no significant stratification in the reservoir, therefore no cold water to dump. It usually isn’t an issue, but with climate change who knows what the future will bring.