Summer has been a good-news, bad-news season for Lake Sakakawea.

The dose of bad news came in early June when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' forecast pegged the big lake's end-of-July elevation at 1,810.6 feet above sea level, which would have been a record low.

The good-news antidote is that Thursday's elevation was more than 6 feet higher than the June forecast. Thursday's elevation was 1,817.0, said Paul Johnston, a corps spokesman in Omaha, Neb. And an updated corps forecast released Wednesday puts the lake 6 feet higher at the end of July - 1,816.6 - than its June forecast did.

Several factors are working in Lake Sakakawea's favor, Johnston said.

Releases from Fort Peck in Montana have been lower than normal for this time of year, Johnston said.

The amount of water flowing into Sakakawea and the amount of water released from Garrison Dam are virtually the same: 18,000 cubic feet per second is flowing in, and 18,100 cfs is pouring out, Johnston said.

"Part of that is we are getting a little more water out of the Yellowstone (River)," he explained.

Rainfall downstream also has allowed the corps to hold releases from Gavins Point at 25,000 cfs, Johnston said, adding that the corps expected that releases would be higher.

"All of those things combined have put us in a better position," he said.

Scott Hobbs, owner of Scott's Bait and Tackle in Pick City, likes that better position.

"Any amount of water over what's predicted is great," he said. "We knew the fishing was going to be good, but we didn't know it would be this good.

"Our only problem is getting people up here. They think they can't get their boats in the water."

Twenty-one recreation areas on the lake have usable boat ramps. "Some (areas) have more than one," said Bob Froelich, fisheries development coordinator with the state Game and Fish Department.

The corps still intends to shorten the downstream navigation season by 47 days, which will mean dam releases will be cut around Oct. 6, and the season will end Oct. 15, Johnston said.

Johnston said it's premature to put a number on how big the cut will be.

"But we do expect releases to drop significantly," he added.

A year ago, Lake Sakakawea's elevation was 1,826.8 msl, but even this July a respite from what seemed to be a continually receding lake level hasn't been good news for Carey Gieser, owner of Sixth Mile Corner in Garrison.

"My business has gone down 20 percent due to the low water levels this year," he said. "I wouldn't go beating any drums. By next spring, we could be down to 1,805."

(Reach reporter Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or outdoors@bismarcktribune.net.)