Roosevelt Lake Reaches Historic Water Levels & Makes History

Spring is here and fishing is busting loose. We are on the leading edge for some of the best fishing the state has seen in a couple of decades or so. Don't miss out! Spring has sprung, and so has the fishing. This is the leading edge of the largemouth bass spawn. Roosevelt Lake is on fire for bass. Roosevelt is now making history it has reached historic water levels. It will fill and spill this year for the first time since the dam was raised in 1996. This fishery is going through the "new lake syndrome" and is already putting lots of big fish on the end of anglers' lines thanks to almost filling in 2005. With the tremendous spawn this year for sport-fish and bait fish, the parade of lunkers should only get longer in the future. Crappies should spawn any time, but crappie action has definitely picked up at Roosevelt. According to some of the latest fishing reports from some Arizona Game and Fish folks that fished Roosevelt, "The fishing was a tad slow, especially for crappie, but we managed to bring back two big largemouths (8 and 10 pounds) and five nice crappies in the 10- to 13-inch range. The best tactic for numbers of bass would be throwing chartreuse/white spinnerbaits with Indiana blades in the flooded timber in the Tonto arm. Fish were mostly in the slot range with a few up to about 4 pounds. I caught most of my eight bass doing that and several other boats were doing it as well. Best fishing seemed to be just off the timber in relatively open areas casting to boils created by bass chasing shad around. The two big largemouth (bass) were caught on crankbaits. Not sure where exactly, but they were caught more in the main lake area. Finally, the water temps were about 60 on the afternoon of March 19. Bass get their spawn on in the low-mid 60s, so with a few warm days the fishing on Roosevelt should really pick up. I heard a couple reports of big bass making nests." Some anglers got into the crappie. The Salt end on the south side seems to be the place for crappie lately. The anglers that I talk to and hear about are trolling for them don't forget the trolling speed is a big factor. When trolling for crappie, use your GPS and troll at two miles an hour near drop offs or structure. A lot of 2 pounders are being caught, but one angler I talked to said he caught a 17-inch crappie. He didn't mention the exact location but he tends to fish the Salt end with pink-headed jigs. Looking at the reports, fishing is good at the Salt and Tonto ends. School House Point is real popular. Spinnerbaits are working well for bass off the points in early mornings. Mid-lake coves are productive using Texas-rigged worms real close to shore. Topwater cranks are a good bet in the early morning up the Tonto. Be sure to try different colored worms before you give up on a spot, the fish are fickle. Water temperatures in the Salt on March 22 were 57 to 59 degrees. In the Tonto, it was 61F, and later in the day, it was between 65 and 67 degrees. Salt River Project discontinued water releases on March 22 at Granite Reef Diversion Dam, the first time since Jan. 27 that excess water will not be spilled into the normally dry Salt River. Charlie Ester, manager of SRP's Water Resource Operations, said most of the snowpack on the Verde River watershed has melted and that for the first time since late January, the Verde River inflow has dropped to less than the water order for the Valley. A portion of the water order has already been switched from the Verde River to the Salt River in an effort to capture all future spring storm runoff, Ester said, and virtually all of the snowmelt that remains is primarily on the Salt watershed. SRP's reservoir system is 96 percent full, compared to 62 percent full a year ago. Ester said Roosevelt Lake, which holds about 70 percent of SRP's storage capacity, has been filling all spring and has reached 95 percent of capacity. He said Roosevelt Lake is currently less than a foot from its high-water mark in 2005, the last wet winter in central Arizona, and is 4 feet from full with about 83,000 acre-feet of available space. Runoff now captured behind Theodore Roosevelt Dam is filling new water-conservation storage space, which is made up of 272,500 acre-feet of available space that is allocated for the Valley cities of Phoenix, Glendale, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler and Scottsdale. This is only the second instance in which water has been stored in the new conservation space since Roosevelt Dam was raised 77 feet during a modification project that was completed in 1996. Whether Roosevelt Lake fills completely this spring will depend on temperatures over the next several days and future spring storms on the watershed, Ester said. Additional spring precipitation and above-normal temperatures could result in a faster pace of melting snow, which could fill Roosevelt and possibly prompt additional water releases into the Salt River through the Valley. Since the productive rains starting in the fall, SRP has spilled more than 150,000 acre-feet of water into the Salt River below Granite Reef Dam, primarily because of limited capacity at Horseshoe and Bartlett reservoirs on the Verde River. The 2007-2008 releases, which peaked at 12,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) at Bartlett Dam on the Verde River and 23,000 cfs -- including local inflows -- over Granite Reef Dam below the confluence of the Salt and Verde rivers, were the first into the Salt River through the Phoenix area since 2005 and only the third release over Granite Reef since Roosevelt Dam was modified. SRP water serves the lands within its service territory in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area that includes all or a portion of the water needs for the cities or towns of Avondale, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Mesa, Peoria, Phoenix, Tempe, Tolleson and Scottsdale. SRP is the largest raw-water supplier in the Phoenix area, normally delivering more than 1 million acre-feet annually.