WATFORD CITY �” North Dakota Game and Fish personnel almost outnumbered the 12 area residents attending Tuesday evening’s District 1 spring Advisory Board meeting here at the Civic Center Heritage Room.

The few who attended enjoyed an excellent opportunity to ask questions while also participating in a good exchange that reviewed the past year outdoors and also attempted to look ahead.

Game and Fish deputy director Roger Rostvet provided an overview of the past year, which included a question about possibly reinstating graduated pheasant limits that were used in past years. Graduated pheasant limits saw a lower limit used during the first several weeks of the season before the limit was then raised for the balance of the season.

Rostvet said the department stopped using that approach because, “It really didn’t do what it was intended to do �” take pressure off of the landowner.”

Given the severe winter this year that has seen record snowfall in some portions of the state, Rostvet said there could be areas this coming fall where the daily limit is two roosters, as opposed to the the three per day of recent years. Game and Fish Wildlife Division chief Randy Kreil told Tuesday’s gathering that 1998 was the last time graduated limits were used.

“It will be interesting to see what happens to pheasants,” Kreil said regarding the tough winter of heavy snow and cold temperatures.

He said some Regent-area residents attended Monday’s Advisory Board meeting in Dickinson and said birds in the southwest were hit hard.

“There are a lot of stories, but we won’t have any hard data until we have those spring crowing counts,” Kreil said.

He said the fact the state is losing large chunks of Conservation Reserve Program acres that provide much needed cover also doesn’t set a good platform for a strong pheasant recovery.

“It certainly isn’t going to be what it was the last couple of years, even with good reproduction,” Rostvet added.

The impact of the hard winter on the state’s deer population also remains to be fully documented, although the department has some indications that mortality was high in specific areas.

“We actually flew some whitetail units in January,” Rostvet said, while adding the heavy snow after January prompted the department to again take to the air in March in some areas.

“We saw some of those that had 30 percent to 40 percent fewer deer from the time we flew in January to March,” he said of central portions of the state where cover is more sparse.

Members of Tuesday’s audience guessed 40 percent of the deer herd died this winter in some areas north of Williston. Overall, Rostvet said many areas of the state experienced above-average deer loss.

Meanwhile, Kreil said this year may not have been as hard on the state’s antelope population, which exists far enough west to have avoided much of the heavy snow this winter.

Rostvet said the department is finding via its collared animals that antelope range very far in a given year.

“Weather conditions really dictate where they end up in the winter,” he said.

Fishing this winter, however, was hampered in many parts of the state by a lack of access, and the northwest wasn’t much different. Those northwest anglers who were able to get on the ice didn’t find the fishing to be good, audience members stated.

“Last week they were still driving out on Devils Lake,” Rostvet said of the ice that remains on that popular fishery.

Northwest District fisheries supervisor Fred Ryckman told the group most all of lakes in the region were limited to walk-in or snowmobile access due to the snow. Trenton Lake was the exception to that, where roads leading to the lake were kept open for much of the winter, he said.

Ryckman also stated the Missouri River-Yellowstone River confluence area had good access that allowed anglers to get on the ice area.

Looking ahead to the upcoming paddlefish season that opens on Friday, May 1, Ryckman again stated his outlook is the same as last year, given the low water flows on the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. The season is likely to run about a week before anglers take the maximum number of paddlefish allowed.

The runoff in early May is typically the result of snow melt in the rivers’ valleys, which is considerably less than the mountain snow melt.

The fact the heavy snow across the state is rapidly melting and pouring into the Missouri River south of Bismarck-Mandan also is radically increasing the level of Lake Oahe. At the same time, discharges at Garrison Dam are again reduced to not aggravate the high water levels in the Missouri River.

Rostvet said about 100,000 cubic feet per second of water is coming into Lake Oahe via the different downstream tributaries. That compares to normal high discharges of 20,000 cfs from Garrison Dam during the summer.

The lower discharges at Garrison Dam provides continued good news for Lake Sakakawea, which remains on an upward swing this spring. Ryckman said Lake Sakakawea could now possibly reach 1835 mean sea level this year, which would almost be the normal operating pool level for the reservoir.

“It will be good for a lot of people and it will be good for fish,” Ryckman said of the return of higher water levels on Lake Sakakawea.

He said the heavy snow across the northwest corner of the state has allowed many of the area district lakes to replenish themselves this spring. There are a few that entered the winter with low water levels, however, that saw winter kill issues.