Fishing   Tiber Reservoir

About Dale Gilbert

Dale does primarily walleye fishing, and does a lot of it. He is a five time PWT/RCL Championship Qualifier, 2 time Montana Walleye Circuit Angler of the Year and 2 time Montana Walleye Circuit Team of the Year. Dale has multiple Montana Walleye Circuit tournament wins. He offers “On-the-Water” seminars / guide trips to help you learn how to find and catch fish. One of three members of Team Walleye.

Fishing report for Tiber Reservoir

Reports provided by Dale Gilbert

July 11, 2011

Some would say Tiber is in the toilet and literally some would be right. The lake is as high as it has ever been and some of the facilities are totally under water. The toilet at the new VFW ramp has only about 3 inches of the vent pipe above the roof sticking out of the water. The facility at the top of the old ramp is about half flooded. The lake elevation is at 3010.48 feet which is about 17 1/2 feet above the normal/full pool. The inflows are dropping slightly but they are still way more than what is being released so it is still coming up. A good part of the VFW campground is actually under water. The only boat ramp on the lake that is still accessible is at the Tiber Marina.

Not many people are out fishing and the general fishing report has been poor. A lot has to do with the high water. If you go fishing there now you will be fishing areas you have never dreamt about fishing, it is like going to a brand new lake and starting from scratch - nothing looks even remotely familiar. Islands are now under water with only an occasional tree sticking up to give you a clue where some of them once were. Flooding has created new islands. Bottom line if you don’t have a contour map with GPS be exceptionally careful where you go - it is really hard to judge the location of old landmarks. The old grain bin up in the Willow Creek arm has about 6' of water over the roof of it - amazing to see what that looked like on my Lowrance StructureScan.

With that said, however, I actually had a very good day of fishing. We didn’t catch anything really big, 21 1/2" was the biggest walleye, but we did catch several in the 19-20" range and quite a few other really nice eating size fish.

The fish we caught were shallow in less than 10' of water - most pitching up towards shore with a Perfection Jig and a Berkley Gulp Alive minnow. So although part of the lake is in the toilet-literally, if you are willing to fish some new ground and work a little to find them, the fishing can be pretty good.

July 6, 2011

Here are some pictures of Tiber. This is absolutely amazing. I haven’t been up and fished it since mid June, but the water levels have continued to come up. It is currently at 3009.90 feet and came up another .20 feet in the last 24 hours. There is only one boat ramp accessible on the entire lake - at the Tiber Marina. The VFW campground and toilets are flooded. It is almost unrecognizable at this point. There is still 3005 cfs coming in and only 772 cfs being released so it will continue to come up.

So, I don’t have a fishing report for Tiber and probably won’t until the water levels drop and the system stabilizes. Long term, it should mean good things for the fishing, but it will be a mess for a while.