For nearly a decade, South Dakota banker Bob Fylling and his old high school fishing buddies have been traveling to western North Dakota's Lake Sakakawea once a year in search of walleye.

This year, they brought their quest back to the state. But they went looking for the big one a little farther east.

With Lake Sakakawea near a record low and Devils Lake near a record high, it was an obvious move, said Fylling, who lives in Sioux Falls.

On Sakakawea, "the water isn't where we used to fish," he said.

Sakakawea and Devils Lake are separated by only about 70 miles as the crow flies and both are considered among the finer walleye lakes anywhere. But they have undergone radically different changes in size in recent years, with the Missouri River basin going through years of drought and the Devils Lake basin seeing more than a decade of wet weather.

While boat ramp access at Sakakawea has been a hook in the thumb of anglers in recent years, the steady expansion of Devils Lake has created acre upon acre of prime fish habitat.

"There is nowhere else I know where you can fish flooded fields," said Bruce Samson, a professional angler from Minnetrista, Minn., who has won two Professional Walleye Trail events on Devils Lake, in 1999 and 2002.

Wildlife experts say walleye fishing still is good on Lake Sakakawea, but biologists, tourism officials and business owners on the lake are fighting an uphill battle against public perception.

"A lot of people who schedule guiding trips at Sakakawea are fearing that there's no water there," said Mike Peluso, a professional angler from Bismarck who still lists the lake as his favorite walleye fishery. "We're seeing a shift, where people are heading over to Devils Lake."

Dick Messerly, manager of Fort Stevenson State Park on Sakakawea, said visitation there has dropped.

"Some of that would be due to people switching where they go to fish, I don't think there's any question about that," he said. "The Devils Lake fishery is basically a great fishery right now. Lake Sakakawea is still a good fishery, but access has been a problem. Sometimes, perception is reality."

Greg Otis, director of the Devils Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, said his region is benefiting from an angler migration.

"That's not something we're necessarily marketing," he said. "We're all in it together. We're all North Dakotans. We feel their pain."

Terry Steinwand, chief of the state Game and Fish Department's fisheries division, said the walleye population in Lake Sakakawea was in good shape going into the summer, but officials are worried about the loss of spawning habitat and lower populations of smelt, the favorite food of walleye.

Still, hungry fish concentrated in a smaller volume of water could be a boon for anglers, Steinwand said.

"People unfortunately tend to get scared away when we have low water levels," he said. "They really shouldn't. Fishing is going to be as good as it's ever been."

Samson said he also does not expect fishing to suffer on Sakakawea.

"Reservoirs have so much water unused by anything," he said. "I have never seen fishing get lousy when the water goes down."

Steinwand said fish in the lake overall should not be smaller than in previous years. He predicted a typical walleye size of 2 or 3 pounds. Messerly said he has seen some anglers bring in 4-pounders this year, and Peluso said he expects many 5-pounders to be pulled from the water.

Devils Lake, where walleye production has been booming, has a lot of young fish, Steinwand said. But big ones also swim the waters - during a recent tournament, the winning team had fish that averaged about 5 pounds.

Messerly said 160,000 acres of new shoreline has been exposed around Sakakawea because of the receding water.

"We've lost 26 million acre feet of water. If Devils Lake lost that much water, it would be totally dry," he said. "When a body of water is down 40 feet from what it is normally, it's pretty understandable that people are going to question some things."

Samson isn't questioning anything - he's trying to learn something he can use for future tournaments on Sakakawea. Samson is collecting aerial photographs of the lake, to map out the vegetation he hopes will one day once again be covered by water and hiding lots of fish.

"I'll have a huge advantage," he said.

Peluso, who has fished both lakes for a quarter century, said that while the Devils Lake fishery right now is "world class," the fishing on Sakakawea this summer might be "as good or better than any other place in the country."

"There's less areas for those walleyes to go and hide," he said. "It presents opportunities for anglers to capitalize."

Fylling said his group hasn't lost its love for Sakakawea.

"I know there's fish there and I love that big water," he said. "But we just decided to give it a try at Devils Lake."

Whichever lake anglers choose, they are likely to go home happy, Steinwand said.

"Fishing is probably better than it's ever been in the history of North Dakota," he said.