As much as North Dakotans enjoy their home-grown local
fisheries, the statistics show the big waters of Devils Lake, Sakakawea, Oahe
and the Missouri River outweigh the others when it comes to number of anglers,
fishing trips and hours of angling.
But the importance of these big waters to North
Dakota’s overall fishing mix extends beyond their shorelines. Many of the
walleyes anglers reel in from the state’s new crop of prairie lakes and other
waters originate from one of the “Big Three.”
Over the years Devils Lake and Lake Sakakawea have
taken their turns at providing the walleye eggs that eventually become
fingerlings stocked around the state, but in the last few years Sakakawea has
assumed that role.
“The walleye population in Sakakawea the last few
years has been so good … lots of big fish, lots of fish of all sizes that are
in really good condition,” Dave Fryda, Missouri River System coordinator for the
state Game and Fish Department, said in the June 2019 issue of
North Dakota Outdoors magazine
. “When the condition of the
fish is good, they produce more eggs and a better quality of egg. The walleye
population in Sakakawea is phenomenal right now and it’s certainly our best
option.”
Department fisheries chief Greg Power told Outdoors
editor Ron Wilson that
while other areas of Sakakawea attract spawning
walleye, the Van Hook Arm, Parshall Bay in particular, offers easy access and a
bit of shelter for fisheries personnel. And more importantly, Power said, “Van
Hook Arm and Parshall Bay has one of the highest concentrations of fish … this
is the epicenter.”
The fish are not only attracted to the area because of
creeks flowing into back bays and warming water temperatures, but because of
the abundance of cobble substrate spawning habitat that walleye need to
reproduce successfully in the wild.
“We’ve certainly seen a growth in the number of
walleye fisheries on North Dakota’s landscape in the last 10-20 years,” Fryda
said in the article. “The vast majority of those fisheries get their start
right here on Sakakawea because a lot of those bodies of water do not have
natural reproduction. Sakakawea is in such great shape that’s it’s not only
maintaining its own fishery, but driving other walleye fisheries across the
state.”
In 2018, Game and Fish Department personnel stocked
nearly 10 million walleye fingerlings in more than 160 waters across the state.
This year, in a rather late walleye spawning run that took place starting the
first week of May, Game and Fish and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff met
the walleye egg goal of 450 quarts in just a few days.
Those eggs produced enough fingerlings so that by the
time distribution efforts are wrapped up this month, the previous record of 12
million fingerlings stocked could be surpassed, according to Department
fisheries production and development supervisor Jerry Weigel.
Since the bulk of the state’s waters would not have
any walleyes without stocking, having a reliable source of fish is an important
factor in maintaining the current wealth of walleye waters.
