Spring floods present Iowa walleye anglers with a number of challenges, not the least of which is the addition of hundreds, perhaps thousands of new surface acres to explore. Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources net and electro-fishing surveys show a significant population of 1- to 5-pound walleyes in Saylorville Reservoir, just north of Des Moines on the Des Moines River. Bragging boards at local bait shops show photos of anglers with walleyes up to 7 pounds taken from the big flood control reservoir.

"Saylorville had some of the healthiest, thickest walleyes we sampled anywhere in my territory last fall," said IDNR fisheries management biologist Ben Dodd. "There's a huge population of shad in there, and the walleyes do very well because of those shad. We stock walleyes in Saylorville every year. There's probably some natural reproduction, but it's our stocking programs that keep the fishing as good as it is."

Dodd hopes to make walleye fishing even better at Saylorville through a research initiative designed to discover exactly where the stocked walleyes end up.

"Walleye fishing in the Des Moines River above Saylorville has been excellent for the past decade, so some of those walleyes may be moving upstream," he said. "Walleye fishing below the dam, down through Des Moines and into (Lake) Red Rock has been good, too, so some of them may be going through the spillway.

"We're going to tag some of the fish we stock and then see how many of those tagged fish show up above and below Saylorville. (We'll use) that information to adjust our management practices on Saylorville itself."

One of Dodd's biggest challenges in managing walleye populations at Saylorville is the nearly annual rise and fall of water levels in the flood control reservoir. Almost every year the lake swells with snowmelt and spring rains in April, May and June, then slowly returns to normal pool sometime in July or early August. In an average year, Saylorville spends between two and four months above normal pool.

High and changing water levels present walleye anglers at Saylorville with a variety of challenges. Aside from adding thousands -- perhaps tens of thousands -- of surface acres to the lake, the additional depth encourages walleyes to explore miles of newly submerged shoreline structure. Runoff from farm fields as far away as southern Minnesota adds turbidity to the lake's water, changing where and how walleyes feed.

Stymied by the extra miles of submerged structure and variable turbidity, many anglers give up on walleyes at Saylorville when the lake is above normal pool. But there are a few anglers who quietly launch their boats onto the big lake no matter how high or turbid the water is. Those anglers don't expect easy fishing when the lake is high, but they are confident that if they use a few tricks and fish a few areas favored by walleyes during high water, they have a better-than-average chance of equaling or bettering catch rates from when the lake is at normal pool.

POUND THE PAVEMENT
Some of the better-known high-water walleye hotspots when Saylorville is 10 or more feet above normal pool are submerged access roads and parking lots. Some of the roads and parking areas, such as those associated with the lower access to the Big Creek Spillway just west of Polk City, are graveled and therefore naturally attractive to walleyes. Others, including the parking lots at Cherry Glen Access on the east side of the main lake basin, are paved. No one is certain why walleyes are attracted to flooded pavement.