Gauge Description:

Seasons:  Flows generally drop to boatable level in June after the peak snowmelt.  The window of opportunity might be late May in dry years, or July in wet years.   There is also a boatable period in late winter before the main spring snowmelt starts, but getting to the put in is problematic, because of gated roads. 

About 250 to 550 cfs is all you want; 300 to 400 cfs seems to be optimum for many boaters. The higher flows will clean it up but makes some drops a lot more pushy.   At 250 cfs, all of the bedrock drops are still pretty good, but low gradient, wider, bouldery sections such as the last 1 1/2 miles are a lot more work. 

Since 2010 Dreamflows is able to make very accurate calculations of the flow in Dinkey Creek above the NF Kings.  The graph below is from this calculation.  Traditionally we had to assume that flow in Dinkey Creek above the NF Kings was about the same as flow in NF_Kings below Dinkey.    The flow given at the NF gauge is generally  the main flow in this section of Dinkey, because the North Fork Kings itself is completely dammed and diverted. Only a very small flow normally comes down the NF to this gauge.  If the NF Kings is spilling it used to be impossible to accurately calculate flows in Dinkey without going up and looking at it.   Now,  CDEC NF Kings above Dinkey Creek, is online allowing us to see if the NF is spilling from Balch Afterbay.    

Here are very rough estimates of the stage - flow translation for the NF Kings above Dinkey.
4.7 = 2000 cfs
3.4 = 1000 cfs
2.8 = 580 cfs
2.3 = 300 cfs
1.9 = 130 cfs
1.4 = 30 cfs fish release

Dreamflows.com makes these calculations automatically and provides the the information to AW.