Snow Pack and Lake Sakakawea Levels

[cornman53]

Doesn't look good for this year. Near record low levels for this time of the year.

http://www.nwd-mr.usace.army.mil/rcc/reports/snow.pdf

 

[Bfishn]

One could also say its near average levels. If you took out the huge years of 1997 & 2011 we probably are about average. Fingers crossed for a large La Nina winter in the mountains next year though.

 

[dean nelson]

We are lucking out big time with the flooding down south. Definitely keeping releases down especially on oahe which is basically turned off right now. just pumped that it's going to be enough of a rise on oahe to flood most of the head waters marsh around hazilton which is extremely important now for young of the year fish both bait and game.

 

[Kurtr]

We got the right timing on Oahe this year water up about a foot back in the bays keeping the trees flooded and the crappies happy

 

[dean nelson]

Just thinking Kurt it just occurred to me it hasn't been all that windy as of late and the temps have been fairly stable. Is it to much to hope the smelt may have had a decent spawn. Any word on if they have run and if so when?

 

[Kurtr]

I have not heard but i am hoping they did. I think with all the new warm water bait we have making the fishery more diversified is a good thing

 

[dean nelson]

I have not heard but i am hoping they did. I think with all the new warm water bait we have making the fishery more diversified is a good thing

Yeah that's what I was thinking and if we could get both to do well we would unquestionably over the hump and well on our way back to the good times. The north end due to the warm water bait fish is definitely ahead of the south end but this could be the year we look back on as the year she truly got going again.....or the last year it had a decent water level as the corp drops her again. I prefer the first one myself. I wish the crappies were better suited for the lake so we could have a consistent fishery but they just can't take her winter season when they are young.

 

[Kurtr]

The fish i caught last night are starting to get that football look and were full of fat. The crappies have been a nice addition for the last 5 years every spring it seems to get better with more and more of them i am hopping they will be a main stay for the future

 

[dean nelson]

See that's the problem crappies are a slow growing fish and they don't get big enough to survive the first winter in oahe. We get huge spawns every year but then loose to lions share under the ice. Back in 2009 there was a huge amount of invertebrates produced which allowed that's years crop to grow about an inch more then normal before freeze up. Problem is we have a great year class in the 09 fish but almost nothing coming up behind them. Thus why we catch tons of big ones and almost nothing else so when we loose this group we will see a dramatic drop in fish numbers. The real sad thing is if it's this good with one year class imagine how good it could be with consistent production at that level. We probably would have the best crappie lake in the country.

 

[Kurtr]

We must have a little better area for them down here as we have been catching alot of small ones the last few years open water and ice fishing.

 

[Bfishn]

See that's the problem crappies are a slow growing fish and they don't get big enough to survive the first winter in oahe. We get huge spawns every year but then loose to lions share under the ice. Back in 2009 there was a huge amount of invertebrates produced which allowed that's years crop to grow about an inch more then normal before freeze up. Problem is we have a great year class in the 09 fish but almost nothing coming up behind them. Thus why we catch tons of big ones and almost nothing else so when we loose this group we will see a dramatic drop in fish numbers. The real sad thing is if it's this good with one year class imagine how good it could be with consistent production at that level. We probably would have the best crappie lake in the country.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple years. I hope the crappies can keep flourishing and i'm not completely convinced there aren't other year classes. I've never caught small crappie on Oahe in ND, but have seen them in cleaned walleye/pike. If you catch them up here they always seem to be about 11-15". I mean shouldn't we have been catching a ton of 8" a few years back? I never did once. They just seem to show up as big guys.

 

[dean nelson]

The ones we see in the fish tend to be young of the year fish in the 2 to 2.5 inch range. Not sure about the 2013 time frame wasn't down there much that year so dont know where the mid sized ones were. Maybe with this year being such a short ice season more of last year's made it through but have no real idea if they did.

 

[zoops]

I saw the video from the GNF about Oahe crappies that mentions quite a few of the things Dean mentions about year classes, and that most of the time they have a hard time making it through the winter. I can't remember if they said why that is exactly. They do well in northern MN and Ontario where the winters are significantly longer than Oahe's.

 

[Bfishn]

I saw the video from the GNF about Oahe crappies that mentions quite a few of the things Dean mentions about year classes, and that most of the time they have a hard time making it through the winter. I can't remember if they said why that is exactly. They do well in northern MN and Ontario where the winters are significantly longer than Oahe's.

Yeah the not making it through winter doesn't make much sense to me because they flourish in much harsher conditions. I wonder if it's because of Ice fisherman? Every damn group seemed to keep 50 fish last year. Dean, I've been fishing oahe religiously over the past 5-6 years. Never caught the younger year classes. There have just been progressively more of the 11-15". I'm hoping this past year wasn't the peak.

 

[Kurtr]

Down here very few people target crappies so I don't think fishing has much affect. As long as we have flodded trees and weeds like on blue blanket and moose flats along with the deeper bays we will have them around.

 

[dean nelson]

Yeah the not making it through winter doesn't make much sense to me because they flourish in much harsher conditions. I wonder if it's because of Ice fisherman? Every damn group seemed to keep 50 fish last year. Dean, I've been fishing oahe religiously over the past 5-6 years. Never caught the younger year classes. There have just been progressively more of the 11-15". I'm hoping this past year wasn't the peak.

Well watch the report zoops mentioned and get back to me the winter thing. I talked to the fisheries guys over the winter and he explained it to me and then saw it briefly mentioned a little ways into this video. I agree that I have no idea why it would hit oahe but not Jamestown but clearly it does. I mean if we could get them to do an 09 every other year would make this lake unbelievable. Mind you if we had that plus open spring season on walleyes we would be literally invaded by MN, IA and WI guys!!!!

https://youtu.be/VpgQjvqD1H8

 

[dean nelson]

Welly this doesn't suck for Sakakawea. With 1 to 2 more inches coming most of this area is under flood warning with much of its next stop being lake Sakakawea.

 

[dean nelson]

God I hate the corp! They had oahe set to get to at least 1614 and possibly a fair chunk higher which would have been slightly higher then last years peak at 1613.5 but I see they have now changed the release schedule and that means we are pretty well done now. The flooding down south must be low enough for them to crank up releases to over twice as much as they were going to be.

 

[Kurtr]

Water has came up about 5 feet down here the last week.

- - - Updated - - -

To add I hat the Coe also.

 

[Wildyote]

The influx of walleyes and pike in Oahe are very hard on young crappies and have helped fill the smelt void. Red lake in Minnesota was a world class crappie fishery and only had a few year classes. They closed down the Indians netting and sport fishing and the walleyes came back and very few crappies.