(Stanton) Weekend rainfall was a welcome site as the Iowa DNR patiently waits for Viking Lake to fill back up to its regular depth.
The Montgomery County water body was drawn down in the summer of 2019. Bryan Hayes, Fisheries Biologist, explains the process. “The goal was to lower the lake eight feet, basically release half the water volume, crowd the fish population to make the predation by large mouth bass more effective on the bluegills, reduce bluegill numbers, and then come fall or spring we would re-fill the lake.”
The lake began refilling in January of 2020, but after gaining five feet of water things went dry. “Mother Nature had other ideas. It stopped raining in July and the lake started going the other direction. It went back down to nine feet low and stayed there through the winter. Even with the amount of snow we had this winter we didn’t raise the lake much mainly because all the ponds in the watershed were low. We’ve got to fill those ponds before they’ll start passing water onto the lake.”
Prior to rains this past weekend the lake was still nine feet low. Hayes is hopeful the lake can get refilled by the end of the spring. “Then it will be a big year at Viking Lake for those fish to grow as we flood a lot of terrestrial vegetation that’s grown up on the banks. We expand that environment to give them twice as much room. Fewer fish in twice as much room results in really good growth.”
Hayes says Viking Lake probably has the best crappie population in the area right now. There’s also potential for a really strong bluegill population.
