09-23 REELLIFE digital - Flipbook - Page 11
Ft Peck’s 3.8 mile long dam was
completed in 1937, backing up
the Missouri River for an amazing
134 miles in length and 220 feet at
its deepest spot. With over 1,500
miles of shoreline, it is longer than
the California coastline and bigger
than Puget Sound. At 18.7 million
acre-feet, it’s the 5th largest manmade lake in the United States.
The surrounding countryside is
high prairie and borders nearly the
entire Charles M Russell National
Wildlife Refuge.
the sky. A brief five-minute run
and we began the process of
deploying our gear. My boat has
two downriggers, and with no
tides or wind to deal with I was
comfortable stacking them,
setting the deep rods at 60 and
90 feet, and stackers 10 feet above.
Not more than five minutes after
all rods were out, the port deep
rod got bitten 60 feet deep. As
the line came taunt the drag
began to scream – our first Fort
Peck chinook was on! Standing
next to the rigger, I grabbed the
rod and felt the pull of a solid fish.
I had brought my knuckle buster
reels to Montana and was glad I
did! There is no better fight than a
big chinook on a knuckle buster.
Add to that break-away flashers
and this chinook was giving me
everything I could handle and
then some.
Dozens of species of fish inhabit
the lake, and it is a world-class
body of water for walleye, bass,
pike, and lake trout. The chinook
were introduced in 1983, but
what really caused a boom for
the fisheries of Fort Peck was the
1984 introduction of cisco to the
reservoir. This species of bait fish,
also known as lake herring, rapidly
reproduced, and they provide the
reservoir with an ample source
of food for the various sport fish
in the lake. It also is no small
reason the chinook have grown
so well, with the state record at an
impressive 32.05 lbs with a girth of
27.5 inches and a length of 38.25
inches, caught by Greg Haug of
Bismark, ND in 2020.
To top it all off, the State of
Montana has a massive hatchery
at Fort Peck where they raise and
release walleye, pike, and salmon –
with a capacity to raise and release
over 500,000 chinook, it makes for
a very healthy population of fish to
target.
Launching at the crack of dawn
is always a special time of day. We
idled out to the main reservoir
with the sun cracking the
eastern sky, beautiful shades of
orange, yellow, and red painting
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