Warm rain won't help much. The oxygen levels in surface to 40 is fantastic. But stripers and walleye can't live in that warm of water. They can visit, but they have to go through dead water that is void of oxygen to get there and then it's like trying to breath on a 110 degree day while you are running laps. The latest report is due out soon and I fully expect to see a complete dead zone in 40-70. That means the zone will have 1 mg/l or less. The last report was 2-3 mg/l Stripers and Walleye can live in 2-3 mg/l but not very well and not for long. So the fish have to choose... Do I stay cool enough to survive or do I breath? That's a tough call...


We are asking people that do fish to count any shorts you catch toward your limit even if you have to let them go. The ones being caught are not even able to to try to swim off right now in most cases. Those may be the fish we rely on in the near future.

As to why this happened... The record levels last spring did not do the lake any favors. They caused more than usual waters to be pulled this summer. The corp is now gun shy and pulled far too much far too soon. They had all fall and early winter to pull it down instead of pulling it so hard this early. I understand the people in charge of the generation schedule have been replaced. Then you throw in this drought and the lake is even lower than normal. In reality, the lower than usual water isn't the real issue. It's the fact that the deep cool water at the dam release level was pulled out a month ago. We normally can pull up 55 degree water from 80 ft all the way through most of September but we've been pulling 64 degrees for a month now. I got a report of pulling 68 degrees from 70 foot this week. I'm really surprised we haven't seen more issues on the river.

The real major issue right now is this warmer than normal late summer. We need some cool days and 50 something degree nights to help get that upper level down to 77 degrees. Stripers and walleye can do very well in those temps. Cold water falls so as the absolute surface water cools it will be pulled down to around the 40 foot mark.

The sooner we get to 77 the better!