The first impression many anglers have when fishing a large body of water is: "where do I start?" Unlike a small pond or little lake, the shoreline gives away very little of what is underneath the water, and with so much water, the fish can move at will. You will wonder how to find these roving fish without blindly trolling or randomly casting into the depths. With a couple of tools and a little fish knowledge, however, an angler can unlock many of the secrets of the water, and as a result, avoid wasting time trying to stumble on the fish.
Doing your Homework.
First, an angler should research the reservoir heavily! You need to find out some basic data including: How old is the reservoir, what kinds of fish where in the river before the reservoir was formed, and what has been stocked since, what type of dam was used to contain the water, and what does the bottom look like. An easy way to find out alot of this data for federally, state, or corporately constructed lakes is to hit the web site of the organization that owns the dam. Many lakes in the US fall into four categories: Hydroelectric, water storage, recreational, and shipping. Hydroelectric lakes were build to provide power, and therefore the dams are controlled by a power company (the Tennessee Valley Authority and American Electric Power are a couple of examples). The best source of information on hydroelectric lakes is the web site for the company that operates the dam, and the visitors center for the dam itself. The remaining three categories are usually built in the US by the Army Corps of Engineers or by an equivalent state agency. Information on these lakes is also available at the lake or dam visitor center, and on the web by a visit to the Army COE web site (which will direct you to the appropriate district web site). If the dam was built by a state agency, a simple trip to the states department of natural resources (or equiv.) will work.
Now that you know the history of the dam, and have an idea of how the lake looks and what facilities are available, how do you find out about the fish? The best place to find out what fish are in a public lake is to call or link to the states or provinces department of fish&game (or freshwater fish commission). They will have detailed stocking information available for the lake, and with any luck, will give you access to CREEL SURVEY DATA. Creel survey data is data taken from a sample of anglers on a body of water including what they caught, what methods were used, how long did they fish for, and what species were they after. The creel survey data is a gold mine! Use the data to find out what fish are most often caught, and what species are most pursued, and note particularly the dates for each set of data. While the data on what is stocked in the lake will tell you what fish are in the lake, the creel data will tell you how many of these fish end up on the dinner table, or if they survive to adulthood. Another good piece of data to ask about is if any scientific fisheries studies have been done on the lake. These technical reports are hard to read, but what they can tell you is where each species is found, how big it gets in the lake, and how healthy the population is. IN ALL THESE DATA SOURCES LOOK FOR UNDEREXPLOITED SPECIES (fish that no one pursues but that
