ALAMO LAKE:
An Early Favorite
Last year, Alamo blossomed out like a woman in her ninth month carrying triplets. This desert impoundment on the Bill Williams River experienced high lake levels not seen since the early days of its existence.

Going into January of last year, Alamo was so low that all the boat ramps were out of the water and couldn't be used. But by late February, there was quite a transformation. All the ramps were underwater and again, not useable. Even signs pointing to the boat ramps were underwater.

As the Santa Maria and Big Sandy rivers routinely pumped tens of thousands of gallons of nutrient-rich water into this fishery east of Wickenburg, all the luxuriant growth along Alamo's shoreline, and along the riparian area leading to the lake, became flooded.

After years of drought, the Alamo bass factory experienced a tremendous spawn and was back in business once again. By summer, anglers were seeing huge schools of juvenile bass and vast clouds of baby shad. If Alamo crappie futures were sold on the stock exchange, maybe we all could make enough money to retire and go fishing more often.

Alamo has yet another claim to fame: Typically, it experiences its annual bass spawn a month to six weeks ahead of most other Arizona bass lakes. My friend, Stewart Kohnke, the wildlife manager at Alamo and a good fishing partner, says this fairly shallow desert lake sits in a depression between two small mountain ranges, creating kind of a "solar bowl" effect.

Stew has treated me to many a February fishing expedition where we caught bass and crappie staging for their spawn, or on the beds. Watch for a warming trend in February or early March, then hook up the boat and head for Alamo for some pre-spawn angling action. Be sure to take your flippin' rod and plenty of spinnerbaits.

Also, keep in mind that the nutrient-rich flows down the Bill Williams River have fed into Lake Havasu, which also responded with terrific spawns of sport fish and forage fish.

LAKE PLEASANT:
Dark Horse Worth Watching
The normally dry Agua Fria River snaking through Black Canyon City drew onlookers in 2005, after it turned into a rampaging river

By the time the Agua Fria emptied into Lake Pleasant, it resembled some of the historic footage of the silt-laden Colorado River boiling through the Grand Canyon prior to the building of Glen Canyon Dam.

Every year, typically, Pleasant is gradually filled with nutrient-poor irrigation water piped a couple of hundred miles from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project Canal. Then throughout the irrigation season, Pleasant is gradually drawn down to meet water demands.

But last year was dramatically different. From its normal winter low in early March, Lake Pleasant filled to overflowing in almost a single week. For the second time since the Waddell Dam was built in 1993, Pleasant rose to its maximum elevation of 1,702 feet in height. For the first time in its history, however, Pleasant was kept at that 1,702 until early summer, inundating a wide band of luxuriant upper Sonoran habitat throughout the prime spawning times for sport and forage fish species.

By the fall, anglers were once again catching Pleasant bass with paunches resembling footballs. While the lake may never again provide a parade of behemoth bass as it did during the New Lake Syndrome, this past season offered a decent number of lunkers putting big smiles on a host of faces, including mine. An occasional six- to 10-pound bass on the end of the line raises the angling anticipation factor.

So give these lakes a try in 2006. Maybe I'll see you out there.