Arizona Fishing Report
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Welcome to our Arizona fishing report page! Courtesy of Arizona Game & Fish. Check out our Arizona Wildlife News Page, too.
Updated on February 1ST
Fishing news!
Rory’s Tip:
Fill and spill - thanks to abundant rainfall and snow pack, this term is like music for anglers and sings of future promise for the state’s inland fisheries.
Having our lakes filling and spilling isn’t just about water -
it’s about nutrient loading. Those nutrients coming into the lakes
are like adding fertilizer to the vegetable garden, but in this case,
it’s aquatic organisms that will grow. Fish reproduction and grow outs
will be very good.
Also, keep in mind that this is the second year in a row of good snow pack
and runoff in the central Arizona lakes. Back-to-pack years with good
reproduction can create some dynamic fishing opportunities both now and in
the future.
There is tremendous news from southern Arizona - Pena Blanca, which had
been drained for work on the lake bottom, has now filled and is spilling.
With any luck, we’ll be stocking it with trout in a couple of weeks
or so. However, launching a boat may be a little challenging. Check out the
report.
Patagonia and Arivaca are both full and spilling as well. Plus anglers have
been catching limits of trout at Parker Canyon Lake.
As of Jan. 27, Roosevelt had reached the 93-percent full mark, so it’s
just a matter of time before it fills and spills as well. With with Tonto
Creek hitting 70,000 cfs and the Salt River burgeoning up to 100,000 cfs
last week, the amount of nutrient loading this lake received has to be
phenomenal.
Canyon and Saguaro both received in influx of water and those all-important
nutrients from runoff in their localized areas. According to reports from
anglers, Fish Creek was raging like a river.
With the Verde River peaking at 100,000 cfs last week, Horseshoe Lake
almost filled and Bartlett rose signicantly, forcing SRP to release water
to maintain some storage room for the spring runoff yet to come (or other
major precipitation events).
Lake Pleasant also received significant inflows and nutrient loading. The
Agua Fria peaked at around 40,000 cfs at Rock Springs last week. It’s
probably a little early for this to prompt a striper spawn, but if rains and
flows keep coming...who knows?
Alamo Lake also came up 17 vertical feet. That will shut down the good
crappie bite there, at least for a time. I suspect that when this productive
lake turns on again, we’re in for a lot of fishing fun for both
crappie and largemouth bass. Those who like flippin' and pitchin’ in
the submerged mesquite jungle there will want to put new heavy line on their
flipping sticks. You might want to tune up those spinnerbats as well.
Also, great news from San Carlos Reservoir. According to the USGS gauges, it
has risen about 22 feet, with inflows at around 800 cfs. Boy, did it need
some water. However, we don’t have any reports from the tribe on fishing
conditions. Let’s hope the watershed gets some more moisture and it
fills.
With all this snow pack it is likely that Lower Lake Mary near Flagstaff
will have enough water for stocking trout this spring (or sooner), but for
our biologists, it’s a wait-and-see proposition. We did stock it last
year thanks to a good snow pack and runoff.
All the snow pack should bode well for all our other high country trout
lakes as well, although it’s always possible for the more shallow
ones to experience fish kills.
If you get out fishing, drop me an e-mail
(mailtoraikens@azgfd.gov) and let me
know me know how you did.
Here's a tidbit for you. According the NASA, Friday night’s full Moon
is the biggest and brightest full Moon of the year. It’s a
“perigee Moon,” as much as 14percent wider and 30 brighter
brighter than other full Moons you’ll see later in 2010. But
that’s not all. Mars is having a close encounter with Earth, and
on Friday night, Jan. 29, it will join the Moon for an all-night-long
conjunction. Don’t miss it! Sky maps and images may be
found at spaceweather.com.
Rory Aikens — AZGFD
→ To check AZGFD stocking schedule: Click Here
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