I have been fishing the race for years and recently wanted to put some time in fly fishing. Very interesting to hear you guys are flyfishing as far up as the observation deck- a few years back in october i was throwing plugs in that hole below the signs (rt 59 side) and those fingerling trout were just havin a heyday jumping around and then a hell of a splash. ol musky or pike came in for supper. Looking forward to some fall fishing

i know everyone on here argues the point of whats wadable at kinzua but all i can say is this , i weigh 160 lbs (float relatively easy ) and anything above 1500 cfs of discharge is too much for me to safely navigate to wherever i want to go (like across from 59 side to dixon island , when i say wadable i mean from one bank to the other so when you decide after you go up then u will find out what is your confort zone and maybe your definition of wadable means 10 feet out from shore too ......so .....

Well i weigh 260 and i agree  years ago at night we would wade a few feet but down near dixon island that current above 1500cfs from the 59 side is strong. Spin fishing isnt as big an issue because you can really get out there. Up near the dam off to the side its not the current as much as a quick drop off.
but you arent allowed anyway

Jolie: You have to rollcast, or use a cast I was taught as a "water haul" (I've since found out there are different water haul casts, but this is what a water haul cast means to me). If you're facing the river at the wall with the water flowing from right to left, let your fly and line swing all the way downstream so that its parallel with the bank. Have your rod pointing downstream directly at your fly, with the tip a little above the water's surface. Now raise the rod and your arm up to pull most of the line off the water, NOT just raising the rod tip, keep the rod level with the river's surface but lift it up. You should have just a few feet of line and your leader still on the water. Now do a sharp haul on the line with your left hand to load the rod (put a bend in it), while bringing the rod tip up in front of you, then out where you want the line to go, just like on a forward cast. The line will follow the rod tip and go from downstream, back out into the current. If you bring the rod tip down toward the water too much on the forward part of the cast the line will follow it and pile up right in front of you. the key is using the drag of the river on the end of your fly line and the haul on the line to load the rod and generate the speed you'd normally get from having all that line in the air behind you. It sounds complicated, but its actually real simple. Life, haul, flick back out. the more weighted the fly is the more difficult this cast is. If you're standing on a clock face, facing 12, your line goes from 9 oclock to about 1 or 2. Its not graceful, and not as efficient as a backcast, but it gets the job done.

You want to watch out for the report from the USGS?GOV site. I've been checking it lately the calling them and getting a big difference in numbers. The one on the web says its in the teens but on the phone its over 2300. So don't be surprised when you get there if its higher than expected.

you might want to check this site. http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?site_no=03012550

It gives you an hourly discharge rate. But with the rain we received today or at any other point in time after heavy rains, these charts are hard to go by due to fact that at any point they could start releasing more. Always make a mental note on how high the water is on you if you are wading. If you are constantly moving.. take a stick and put it in the ground at waters edge and if you see the water rising on the stick.. start heading to shore.. it might only be an increase of a couple hundred cfps but it could be a couple thousand.. just never know.

i am not surprised i thought the numbers reflected a reduction because of heavy rains south, but i know in the next week the
dam should be letting out more.

ORIGINAL: troutslammer

i know everyone on here argues the point of whats wadable at kinzua but all i can say is this , i weigh 160 lbs (float relatively easy ) and anything above 1500 cfs of discharge is too much for me to safely navigate to wherever i want to go (like across from 59 side to dixon island , when i say wadable i mean from one bank to the other so when you decide after you go up then u will find out what is your confort zone and maybe your definition of wadable means 10 feet out from shore too ......so .....

no there's no argument is there?

I can wade shore to shore at 2200 cfs near the bottom of the dixon island rapids.  its challenging but doable.  I'm not saying anyone can do it, and I certainly would'nt recommend to a newbe, but after a few trips you get the why and the whats about the main run at dixon island.  stay off of shiftable rocks, keep sidewides to minimize the force of the current and lean into it slightly.  I also didn't rush it and took my time to make sure I really wanted to try it.

I'm 180. so its not a matter of being heavy.
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as for your definition of wadable, what do I say?  if your in the water, your wading.  (thats what the fish cops think).  you can do that somewhere on the tailwaters all 365days of the year. IMHO, its a wierd definition. 
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but no one ever said that you could cross the dixon island rapids at 14,000.  but then again, there's more than one good spot in the tailwaters; and they change as the seasons/water levels do..... so "Wading" 10' (sissy as it sounds) just might be the difference between 10 winter walleye and none.

anyways from a liability point of view I have no idea how good a lurker/regular/visiting angler is wading.  I would never urge anyone to go to a place he didn't think he/she could handle.  you've got to be confident and careful.  I'm sure you need to add a little extra caution for episodes of rising water, although normally water doesn't rise very much (it oscillates up and down, as someone in the post said) in a short period of time.

HOWEVER, they clearly are times where they make dramatic changes in water level and you should (must) be able to get out of deeper /faster water when they do.  luckily those times are very rare. 

be safe but be confident.  beginners should test the water and in sunlight to see where they can go.  if you only can get out 10'; you're still fishing water you can't fish 10' ago.  don't be like expecting too easily go everywhere below the signs, but don't make this sound like ohiopyle (or major rapids). it isn't.

Troutslammer: I'm with you. I won't wade from the 59 side over to Dixon in more than 1500, and I don't fish the glade bridge area or some other spots abover 1600. I'll fish the back channel of Dixon island at 2300, and just confine myself to the smaller water.

For casting with your back to a wall just make your false casts upstream and down stream.
Then cast to your spot, the fly line will follow the rod tip.....DT tip #12...