Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling) Recent Comments

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-15 16:24:36

posted by: IntroC. The pike are gonna be thick in Oahe this year. Break out the leaders. Or buy flicker shads.

In a few years Oahe is gonna be a giant pike fishing paradise. I can't wait.

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-15 15:39:27

posted by: Rowdie.

Tim Sandstrom Said:
There's an excellent read in the ND Outdoors magazine on Oahe.

Oahe and the Missouri River are the best fisheries right now. The quality of fish and number of fish are amazing. The tailrace is thumping pretty good right now and won't let up...well...probaby until big cfs spills through the system this spring.

Wrong worng wrong. It's really really is bad, and there will be very few fish caught, and they will all be skinny dinks.

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-15 13:38:14

posted by: solocam. "I don't care if the lake goes up much more but I really don't want to see drop way down again. Seems to me we probably need several years of good water levels for the smelt and walleye populations to totally recover. "

Best statement that I have read all day!!

I swear they put out these lower forecasts as a smokescreen so that they can continue to let the water out. Then when we end up at the prediction, we accept it when in reality, we could have been up a couple feet.

However, this is just me playing armchair corp guy!!

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-15 12:33:13

posted by: walleye94. As for how the fishing is going to be my guess is similar to last year but as for water levels I'm not real excited about what these two links from the Corp are saying. Looks to me like we are going to lose some ground on the lake this year if what they are saying holds true. The one link forecasts SAK runoff to only be 84% of normal...

I don't care if the lake goes up much more but I really don't want to see drop way down again. Seems to me we probably needseveral years of good water levels for the smelt and walleye populations to totally recover.

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

http://www.nwd-mr.usace.army.mil/rcc/reports/cyfcst.html

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-15 11:01:36

posted by: Riggen&Jiggen. I predict that the lake will be close to 1850 this year due to all the snow in the midwest that will result in less water released from the dams. I have heard that out west guys have been catching cisco ice fishing. Currently I think there are more cisco in the lake then smelt. That means that most of the fish this year will again be very deep and on the move. There will be some fish up in the trees/weeds as well. So basically you will have two patterns (deep and shallow) The increased water, cover, forage and lower walleye population will again make things tuff on a fisherman. To be successful you will have to be willing to move a lot and change tactics. When fishing deep believe your electronics. Last year I graphed a bunch of fish in early June 45 to 50 ft deep. At first I refused to believe this would be walleye out this deep this early in the year but eventually I tried it and suprise I caught some nice walleye. You defenitely can catch fish in these tuff conditions but don't expect to be able to catch fish in the same spots day after day. I personally will be fishing other waters that have bigger and better fishing right now. To explain the ice fishing normally when the lake is higher the fish move way west (Tabacco Gardens and Lunds Landing). Same thing happens on Oahe that is why the ice fishing is good south of Bismarck and Oahe has a lot more Walleyes then Sak right now. If you want to put a lot of miles/hours on your motor to scratch out some limits of 16 inchers go to Sak this year. My suggestion is go were the fishing is good like Oahe, Devils Lake and a hand full of small lakes.

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-15 10:45:13

posted by: Tim Sandstrom. There's an excellent read in the ND Outdoors magazine on Oahe.

Oahe and the Missouri River are the best fisheries right now. The quality of fish and number of fish are amazing. The tailrace is thumping pretty good right now and won't let up...well...probaby until big cfs spills through the system this spring.

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-15 10:41:09

posted by: Horsager. My real gut feeling: Take the week before July 4 and the week after, add up all the fish taken from Devils Lake in those two weeks, and it'll be more than Sak produces all summer. And/or Mid-May to Mid-June there'll be more fish taken from Hazelton to the SD line than Sak will produce all summer.

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-15 10:35:24

posted by: Allen. "Open water just around the corner."

I wish, I for one am ready to be chasing some fish! Especially since I just don't seem to get a chance to do that through the ice.

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-15 09:51:47

posted by: Tim Sandstrom. Yes, fish were there to be caught last year but she wasn't her old self. The lake is capable of so much more. We'll see it soon enough but just for conversation sake I wanted to start a "next year" talk forum. By no means am I saying catching fish wiill be impossible. It was do-able but I guarantee a lot anglers fell victim to the Oahe fish catch graph of old. That is, a lot in the "Angling Effort" bar graph compared to the catch bar graph. The tournaments throughout the lake showed that where many of the great Sakakawea anglers fish.

As for weed fishing. I would have seriously paid the best Devils Lake weed fisherman to come on over and fish. This was a flooded disaster last year. Trying to fish the weeds was basically impossible. Even when you could find a patch to toss a crank or throw a bobber the water was so clear it didn't matter. Plus, we just don't have the fish numbers that Devils Lake enjoys.

This year in the weeds? It could be a different deal. The thick nasty stuff should be tamed down quite a bit. That will open the door up for some easier "junk" fishing. So I can't say weed fishing won't be dead. But it still won't be as excellent as Devils Lake "Timber" fishing. Two totally different things in my opinion. The weeds on Sakakawea last year ranged from tumbleweeds, to reeds, to small trees, to thick grass, etc. Simply almost unfishable. I think a flippin' bass assassin on the FLW or Bass Masters would have been intimidated. All you saw on the sonar was a glob of red with zero openings. It was nasty thick. But again, that should be tamed quite a bit opening the door for more productive junk fishing. We'll see.

Now, walleyes brings up a good point which was evident last year. I personally didn't have much going on shallow. June, yeah. June on Sakakawea will always net fish in the boat. Last year's June bite was short lived compared to year's past but there were still fish to be caught. The strange thing was the pattern was much more deep than I was accustom to. The theory for most was they fish were hanging onto the structure that they had grown up on. I will buy into that. When deep fishing is the common place during a difficult time Sakakwea has been going through that makes for even more challenging fishing. We'll see what happens. Honestly, having to contend with deep fishing last year helped to teach a guy a few lessons.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get some shallow junk practice in this year.

On a final note, I don't want to scare anyone off the lake. Plenty of fish will be caught. Sakakawea is a beautiful place to fish. Most beautiful in the whole Midwest in my opinion. Ft. Peck maybe a close second. In a couple years she'll be back to one of the best destinations and I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime, I will take on what she has to offer and learn from it.

Open water just around the corner!

re: Bored at Work...What's Outlook For Sakakawea (Gut feeling)

2010-02-14 12:08:07

posted by: scoutt247.

Intoc,
I can't say that the fishing is terriable like some people are saying. I know the pike are on the rebound we had a good late ice season last year catching and releasing some really big pike and the late ice the years before that was awesome too.

We had a good summer catching walleye, saugars and small mouth all over Sak. and that doesn't even include the icefishing that I do on the lake. My uncle fishes for salmon in the fall and he said that this year was the best year in awhile for big fish.

So I come to the conclusion that yes fishing overall has been really good on Sak.
look at this way if everyone doesn't like the way the fishing is on Sak why go. Go fish DL and try your luck. Or some other lake for that matter. That way you can save Sak for me!