November through January is some of our busiest times for real estate.  I often get comments about the docks being left high in the air because of the level of the lake during these months.  Not to worry when it is time to launch a boat, the water will be there.

There is a dam on the Clark Fork river on the Montana border that lets water into the lake, and one at Albeni Falls in Priest river by the Washington border. In ancient times in the ice age there was an ice Dam about where the dam is now which held back a huge lake Missoula that basically covered all of western Montana. Repeatedly this dam failed and that is what carved out the canyon and Lake Pend Oreille and even formed the bad lands in Washington which are runnels from the torrential flooding. All of the mountains in Upper Montana and in Idaho flow into Lake Pend Orielle. The dams keep this area from flooding. I live on the Clark Fork river and I can tell ahead of time when there will be a storm coming in because they let water out of the Dam at Clark Fork it flows through the lake, down the Pend Oreille River and then they let it out at Albeni.

Every year to insure that we do not have major floods they lower the lake level by 6 feet and then operate the dams to accomodate rainfall and ice melt. This area used to be well known for the land locked Salmon Kokanee. With over fishing and the introduction of lake trout the numbers of Kokanee dwindled almost to the point of extintion. Starting last year they started paying people to fish out the lake trout that predidate on the Kokanee and they lowered the lake levels another 20 feet so that the spawning areas of the predidator fish would be limited. Fish and game reports that this method actually helped and they have doubled the population of the bearing kokanee. so they are doing it again this year.   

 They start mildly filling the lake in April. It is mandatory the lake is up in the spring in summer for boating. This is a high tourist area and with all this water, boating is on the agenda. Memorial day is the official day that the lake has to be a full capacity. This is when the marinas all open for business and people start coming in. Then after labor day in September they start lowering it down in prep for flooding control.