Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Drought fishin

With our severe drought in it's 3rd/4th year (depending on who ya ask), the two local lakes I prefer are extremely low. Like the water line is well over 200 ft from where the boat launch ends.

I don't have normal vs now depth numbers, but we're talking below 30% capacity.

So the question is: is fishing in these lakes worth it? And is it healthy for the fish population? We're talking mountain lake trout (bows) by the way.

Currently there's no talk of shutting down the lakes. But I'm curious what you all think. Fishing better or worse with low water levels, and is it gonna hurt the fishes.

Every summer our local reservior gets drawn down to just a little pond on one end. I bet more people fish it then than the rest of the summer combined. All the fish(rainbows and some browns) are concentrated in one small area. We have found they usually aren't that great to eat when the lake is that low and warm. Does make them easier to catch though. It's easy to play them out and kill em if you aren't careful.

Thanks much. That's the info I was lookin for. I usually eat what I catch. But never seen the lakes this low before. I don't mind catch and release, but if I accidentally kill them, they'll get eaten. Jerked if nothing else.

A lot of people scoff at it, but trout has been a fairly consistent part of our diet for a few years now.

One, the fish are likely stocked.

Two, with less forage area, stunting is likely without reducing the population.

Three, lemon and butter.

They're both native and stocked. About 75% of what I catch is native.

Your second point is what I was wondering about. It's been low before, but this is scary low