Lonepine?

[JH57]

Is there any fishing at Lonepine (dryfork) reservoir anymore (north of Dog lake on the Flathead Reservation)?  We used to do fairly well there for pike in the 70's (gads I'm getting old).  The last time I was by there, maybe 3 or 4 years ago, it was completely dewatered for dam work. I have not been by there since.  I'd heard there were pike in the upper reservoir also, but have never been there.

[slickice]

A good friend checked it out 3 days ago.  Water level is extremely low . . . maybe 8' at deepest part.  I doubt it's worth fishing.   

[G fish]

My dad ran into tribal fish and game 4 years ago asked why he was fishing there because it was killed off.  There has to be fish back by now. The upper has sm pike and lots of bullhead. Good luck.

[JH57]

Doesn't sound promising.   That area is so dry I wonder if the reservoir will ever not see serious late summer dewatering and warm water conditions.

[Cornbread]

I stopped by both of them today. They are extremely low especially the lower one. I fished the upper for bull heads and caught one. Bite was really slow. It is probably 12' deep at the deepest point I found. Ice was 4". Lower is so low that I would be surprised if any fish are alive in it. It will probably run out of oxygen if it hasn't already and or freeze to the bottom. Remember the rez has length limits on pike and you would be hard pressed to get one that long out of the upper one, but it does have or did have a lot of bullheads in it, which are a PITA to clean but from clean cold water they are pretty tasty. I was hoping to catch a mess of them today but only got one, which is weird so I am hoping the super low water isn't killing them off too. I talked via email with a representative from the tribe and was told that these two reservoirs are not managed as a fishery, they are managed for irrigation only so we can fish them if we want but any fish that live in them are just a random by product and if all the fish die out the tribe does not care as that is not the purpose of these two reservoirs.

[missoulafish]

sad but true, many reservoirs are managed for water first and foremost on the Flathead Rez.

[coldcreekchris]

yep.....

[Golden Trout]

I fished upper in the summer 2 years ago.  Caught bullheads only (if you want to catch bullheads this is the place to go).  I figure both lower and upper dryfork/lonepine is a waste of time anymore.  Unless people are still catching some pike?