Snow Pack and Lake Sakakawea Levels

[Rowdie]

http://www.nwd-mr.usace.army.mil/rcc/plots/plots_rollover.html

Its come up, but not 5' in the past two weeks. Closer to 4' in the past 5 weeks

 

[shorthairsrus]

Walleyes and crappie don't get along.

 

[Kurtr]

http://www.nwd-mr.usace.army.mil/rcc/plots/plots_rollover.html

Its come up, but not 5' in the past two weeks. Closer to 4' in the past 5 weeks

Kinda of said it wrong. On west side of car bridge the road they were driving on on Sunday is now under water. So not 5 vertical feet but more visually

 

[dean nelson]

Sort of like the corp saying sak came up 8/10th's of a foot yesterday. Guessing the storm messed with Guage a fair bit. At least Sak still looks to get a fair bit of rise this month.

 

[Kurtr]

All I know is boat docks have had to been moved up and where people we shore fishing a few days ago is now underwater

 

[Davy Crockett]

That's a good problem to have.

 

[Fishmission]

Sak has had nice rises in June the last few years. Great for YOY fish of all types. Even though it had a smelt die off I still had several fish (white bass) puking fresh smelt on the boat deck last week.

 

[Hornhunter]

Sak has had nice rises in June the last few years. Great for YOY fish of all types. Even though it had a smelt die off I still had several fish (white bass) puking fresh smelt on the boat deck last week.

Once again, the smelt die off or so it was called was m
Very very small in consideration to the amount of smelt in the system. It will virtually have no effect on the fishing because anyone who's been fishing the lake knows the amount of bait they are constantly marking

 

[svnmag]

Drought cycle--round gobies...

 

[NodakBuckeye]

Unreal how much bait there is right now

 

[Kurtr]

There is no shortage of bait on Oahe either

 

[SeisMec]

A Game and Fish guy was on the radio this morning saying that the Rainbow Smelt bio-mass in the Van Hook area is larger than normal and expects the fishing to be slow in that area while the rest of the lake was near normal. He said that Oahe was looking at another year of good walleye fishing as the 09 year class was hitting the 17-18" for males and females at 20-22". He named a few lakes in the Bismarck/Dickinson areas that need the carp population reduced to improve spawn rates. He was encouraging more bowfishing of carp as chemical management of a lake is bad for the sports fishing.


update

This was KFYR this morning.

They also had a guy on from Kirsch Outdoor Products talking about their ​

Trax Maps.​

 

[dean nelson]

Wish they would make it so we could throw corn out to bait them in and not get a ticket. It's allot of fun when you get a whole big group of them feeding in one spot!

 

[Migrator Man]

Why don't they allow commercial fishing of carp in ND? I wish carp hunters could bait them. The more they remove the better.

Sak has so many smelt that the die off should not have too much effect. These smelt are really fattening up the walleyes which is great for fishing to come in the future

 

[dean nelson]

They do allow it but just not many guys that do it since there are no processing plants here. Plus we have enough trouble getting a fishing line trough without getting snagged so their nets would be a bitch.

 

[svnmag]

A Game and Fish guy was on the radio this morning saying that the Rainbow Smelt bio-mass in the Van Hook area is larger than normal and expects the fishing to be slow in that area while the rest of the lake was near normal. He said that Oahe was looking at another year of good walleye fishing as the 09 year class was hitting the 17-18" for males and females at 20-22". He named a few lakes in the Bismarck/Dickinson areas that need the carp population reduced to improve spawn rates. He was encouraging more bowfishing of carp as chemical management of a lake is bad for the sports fishing.


update

This was KFYR this morning.

They also had a guy on from Kirsch Outdoor Products talking about their ​

Trax Maps.​

Then freakn' ID/monitor the spawning areas and gd dynamite the effing shi'ite. Should be lots of supply with the mines getting killed off. (I know it's done with gel etc)

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First problem I foresee are those wanting to preserve bow "fishing".

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I guess one could shoot pike.

 

[NodakBuckeye]

They used to allow taking of pike in Vermont with centerfire rifle.

 

[Allen]

They do allow it but just not many guys that do it since there are no processing plants here. Plus we have enough trouble getting a fishing line trough without getting snagged so their nets would be a bitch.

Carp are really easy to seine in ND from late May through late August. We would routinely get 20,000 lbs of them in a single 500 or 750 ft seine. FWIW, we pulled them in by hand and you would be amazed at how rocks, sunken logs, etc just weren't a problem. Think of it this way, if you had a hundred fish in the net they were all going different directions, so you basically provide the difference maker in getting the net in to shore. Granted, there were times where the fish would literally have me skidding into the lake as well, but that only lasted for a little while.

The real reason there's not a decent commercial carp fishery in the state is because of economics. Back in the 80s, we got 6 cents a pound for whole carp. All you had to do was pack them in 100 lb boxes with ice and ship them out to the cities of St Lous, L.A., Chicago, and NY. Other species like buffalo, catfish, goldeye, drum (any non-game species was legal) and they were gutted and sold on the half-shell (as I called it). Crappy way to make a dollar, even tougher for ugly guys who commercial fished to get a date when they smelled like a fish.

Commercial fishing in ND is a very seasonal thing, earlier than late May and starting sometime in August and the carp were out in deeper water swimming around in schools at the surface. Made them tough to catch on a regular basis. The owners of Grasteit Dakota Fisheries out of New Town went to Helena for the winter and fished there with lower overall labor and other costs.

Note, I have no idea what the price per pound is today for carp, but a lot of Grasteit's profits came from the incidental catches over the other non-game species (catfish, goldeye, drum, etc). Some of those species are now game fish and that would make them illegal to catch and sell.

FWIW, even with all the carp we took out of Audubon, I don't think anyone was ever delusional in thinking we dented the population of carp there. Audubon is the carp capital of ND, while Sak is Mecca for buffalo (damn if Beaver on Oahe doesn't hold some big buffs!

I have never asked NDGF why a person can't bait carp in with grains. It really does work!

 

[dean nelson]

Yeah just baited up my folks yard and am going to hit the this afternoon with a buddy. One nice thing for me is if I want to kill the carp all I have to do is put out huge wads of corn dry. Buggers come in and gorge on it but then with their gut packed full of it the corn starts absorbing water and expands and often will kill them. Makes for a nice triple whammy with us catching some on rod and reel and shooting others with bows and getting a corn kill off the next couple days.

 

[Davy Crockett]

Dean, There are tons of articles from UK about baiting carp , You might be shocked what they use. This is the first article that came up in my search just now and it's a sales pitch but there are tons of articles and videos full of information that I have looked at. I share your interest in Carp. Allen shared a lot of information with me in the past, At one time I thought it would be fun to have a small carp operation but like he says, Its a hard life.

http://www.dynamitebaits.com/news/2014/06/an-unbeatable-hempseed-pva-rig-for-carp

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Google hempseed for carp, They have been doing it for ages.