It's been a brutal winter for ice fishing access across North Dakota, but there's a glimmer of hope for anglers going into March, thanks to the recent warm snap that reduced the snowpack on most bodies of water.
"Access onto lakes has been absolutely dismal," said Greg Power, fisheries chief for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Bismarck. "But people are getting on a lot of lakes now. We still have a month of winter left.
"Don't write off winter fishing altogether."
Power said he's made a couple of ice fishing trips this winter to Lake Darling near Minot. While traveling on U.S. Highway 83 north of Garrison, N.D., he said it was more common to see people pulling boats south from Minot en route to the Garrison Tailrace than it was to see anglers on Darling.
The reason: Accessing the open water of the tailrace was less hassle than fighting with the heavy snow cover on Darling -- or any other body of frozen water.
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"In North Dakota, we typically have 20 to 25 percent of our annual fishing efforts ice fishing, and the last few years has been in that 5- to 10-percent range," Power said. "I'm sure that's where we're going to be again this year."
Nowhere, perhaps, has the access challenge been more apparent than Devils Lake, which has seen some of the heaviest snow of anywhere in the state. But there, too, access is gradually improving.
"There will likely be more fishing activity as we get into March, barring any huge dumps of snow," Randy Hiltner, northeastern district fisheries supervisor for Game and Fish in Devils Lake, said Thursday. "I see a few pickups on Devils Lake this week but still limited access and use."
Power said fishing prospects across the state are good if only anglers could get to the fish. Many bodies of water also have relatively young fish populations, he said, which bodes well for future winters.
"It's only going to get better if we can have a normal winter," he said. "There are lots of pike opportunities and pretty good numbers of perch."
All that snow will mean lots of runoff when spring arrives, too, which in turn will create more fishing opportunities after ice-out. North Dakota has nearly 350 fishing lakes, Power said, and that number likely will increase.
"I'm sure when the runoff is done and we've reassessed some marginal lakes, we'll be at a record for the number of fishing lakes in the state," he said.
Dokken reports on outdoors. Reach him at (701) 780-1148; (800) 477-6572, ext. 148; or send e-mail to bdokken@gfherald.com .
