Despite reports to the contrary, New Mexico's popular walleye fishery on the eastern plains, Sumner Lake, has not been drained yet and could actually turn out to be a hot spot for anglers this winter.

"We've got plenty of fish here and they're all bunched up by the dam," said Sumner Lake State Park Ranger Lewis Hancock. "People should get out here and go after them."

The lake shrank considerably this summer because of the drought and irrigation demands, but it still retains a large body of water. On its southern end by the dam face, the depth is about 20 feet.

According to Carolyn Donnelly, water operations supervisor for the federal Bureau of Reclamation in Albuquerque, storage at the lake stood at about 2,100 acre-feet the last week of October, which is about 5 percent of its normal maximum capacity of 43,768 acre-feet.

The spillway and river below the dam also hold large numbers of fish that have passed through the outlet along with irrigation water, Hancock said. He added that because of the low level of the lake, anglers should find fishing from the bank very productive as well.

Anglers can use a floating head jig armed with a minnow or a night crawler and a very light amount of weight to keep their offering out of submerged rocks and in the path of cruising fish.

The best time of day to fish is in the afternoon, when a slight breeze is chopping the water, and anywhere off the southern shoreline in the area of the dam.

Large and smallmouth bass are still biting, and walleye will remain active throughout the winter, Hancock said. The river below the dam is typically stocked with trout during the winter months, too.

The state Department of Game and Fish issued a salvage order in early October allowing for the unlimited taking of sport fish at the lake, after receiving reports that the lake was being drained.

The salvage order has since been rescinded, the lake's level has stabilized and boats can take to the water again.

And with the irrigation season ended Oct. 31, it should slowly begin refilling from a steady supply of inflow — about 140 acre-feet a day from the Pecos River and other upstream water sources, Donnelly said.

Some of that water will continue to be released downstream to keep the Pecos River wet for the benefit of the blunt-nosed shiner, a fish native to the river and listed as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Some will be lost to evaporation and other factors, but the lake itself should accumulate enough water over the winter to sustain the fishery and still bank some water for irrigation.

However, next spring, when downstream farmers with the Carlsbad Irrigation District call for their irrigation water, the fishery will be once again threatened.

And with yet another dry winter expected because of an anticipated second year of a La Niña weather pattern, it's not expected that Mother Nature will come to the rescue like CID did last summer.

CID, which owns the stored water in Santa Rosa and Sumner Lake on the Pecos River, left a substantial amount of water in both reservoirs this past summer to keep from draining the lakes and destroying the fisheries.

But the district might not be able to afford to be so generous at the beginning of next irrigation season, said Dudley Jones, CID manager.

"We're talking about people's livelihoods and survival now," he said.

Another player in the mix, the Fort Sumner Irrigation District, has so far declined to participate in any low-flow operation agreement in which they could contribute to a water conservation effort, Donnelly said.

The Fort Sumner Irrigation District is entitled to the stream flows from the Pecos River up to 100 cubic feet per second, but has no storage rights at either reservoir. CID stores anything above 100 cubic feet per second, especially during spring runoff and the monsoon season.

But a lack of any measurable snowpack runoff last winter left Santa Rosa Lake and its downstream partner, Sumner Lake, in sad shape to start off the irrigation year. A sparse summer monsoon season did little to offset that.

Santa Rosa is now only holding about 9,800 acre-feet, said Curtis McFadden of the Army Corps of Engineers in Albuquerque. That's just about 4 percent of the lake's 267,400 acre-foot peak capacity.

The federal Army Corps of Engineers oversees operations at Santa Rosa Lake, while the federal Bureau of Reclamation does so at Sumner Lake.

Thus it would appear that both lakes could be in trouble come spring, if the winter proves to be as dry as is being forecast.

Falling lake levels directly impact local economies and state park coffers.

According to the park's most recent management plan, Sumner Lake saw visitation drop more than 100,000 in 2000 to a low of 22,000 in 2004, a few years after the lake had been drained nearly dry by irrigators and the fishery was destroyed.

Karl F. Moffatt is a longtime New Mexico journalist and avid outdoorsman who can be contacted through his blog at www.outdoorsnewmexico.com.