Two-year-old Aubree Smith sat fishing at the bottom of a lake Wednesday with her grandfather.
They were fishing on what is normally McPhee Reservoir, but instead they sat on a dry lake bed, fishing on the Dolores River.
The dry winter and dry summer have lead to a drop in lake elevation that is rather dramatic, so on Wednesday, Smith and her grandfather drove for awhile before getting to the Reservoir and then opted to fish on the Dolores River instead, which runs through the drying up lake bed.
Aubree and her mother, Amanda Smith, were happy to show off a fish they had just caught and were talking about exploring the area.
You can walk quit a ways before hitting water, Smith said.
Mike Preston, manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District, said the lake will continue to drop.
It will likely drop between 5 and 10 additional feet, Preston said.
Since Aug. 2, the lake has dropped 16 feet.
And that is vertical feet, so on shallow shore, it will look more dramatic, he said.
The lake is so low, currently 6,877 feet in elevation, that you can walk from Dolores to Big Bend on the dry lake bed.
The lake has been lower, nine years ago. And Preston said he is hoping for a very wet winter.
Rains over the last couple of months have helped a bit, but they need to continue.
With the rains, there has been less demand on irrigation.
Irrigation will likely be turned off around the first of October.
