"While current and turbid water allow giant sauger to run with the big dogs in rivers, their behavior in reservoirs is genuinely different," Stiles says. "Every fish over 4 pounds I've seen come out of Peck, Oahe, or Sakakawea were 30 feet or deeper, right down to 60 feet."
By midwinter, big sauger often stage on or near main points leading into the first major creek arms above a dam, or similar points in the middle third of the reservoir. Some of these fish (as is the case in Melvern Reservoir) later spawn in depths of 5 to 10 feet near the dam. Others move up creek arms to flowing water. From late spring to early summer, sauger filter back into the reservoir and locate on humps, shelves, and flats in 40 to 60 feet of water.
In February and March, sauger in reservoirs tend to group on flats at 30- to 40-foot depths. Last year, Al Lindner filmed a show about sauger in reservoirs for In-Fisherman television. He found schools of sauger ranging from 4 to 6 pounds tucked into the first few bays on the west side of the first two major creek arms above the dam. Similar bays in the east side, Al says, held no sauger.
"Fish were scattered on flats between 30 and 38 feet deep," he says. "They weren't concentrated on or near breaks. Walleyes, on the other hand, were several miles away in shallower water (6 to 12 feet), staging near creek mouths and ready to spawn. Obviously, sauger aren't walleyes. They don't necessarily locate in the same areas."
Through most of the year, however, sauger tend to locate on the same structural elements walleyes use, only deeper. "During late spring on Fort Peck, I find sauger on shelves off main-reservoir points," Kavajecz says. "Big sauger (lots of them are big on Peck) tend to move up during long spells of high wind. In a big wind, the 5- to 6-pounders were in 12 feet of water, but the walleyes were right up on the shoreline at 4 to 6 feet in the same area. Under the right conditions, which are rare, sauger and walleye are both in 12 feet of water."
Nasty weather will prompt movements of sauger and saugeye, usually to shallow feeding zones. Larger fish, it seems, tend to move into areas walleyes probably vacated when they moved even shallower. But in nicer weather, and as the season progresses, even the biggest sauger will be deeper (from 20 to 50 feet) in most reservoirs.
In late winter, sauger location is associated with flats near main-lake points or just inside the first few coves in major creek arms. In the Melvern Reservoir study, the tracking was performed by Jay Jeffrey, a graduate student from Emporia State University.
"Sauger held at depths averaging 30 to 35 feet in February and early March," Jeffrey says. "Location was generally on the main stem of the reservoir or near the mouths of major coves in the middle third of the reservoir. Sauger were often found on gravel flats abutting the main river channel or creek channels."
In late March, sauger in Melvern averaged 17 feet deep. In April, they moved to the back of coves and to gravel substrate areas adjacent to the dam to spawn in 5- to 7-foot depths.
"They spent 20 to 30 days recuperating near spawning sites, then moved into little coves (in main creek arms) where they fed in highly turbid water on young-of-the-year shad, as shallow as 2 feet, even during the middle of the day," Jeffrey says. (In some reservoirs, saugeye have been observed making the same shallow postspawn movement in turbid creek arms.) By midsummer, fish moved deeper, "but not as deep as during late winter," Jeffrey added. "Depths of 20 to 25 feet were more typical."
