Dataset contains angler effort information for waterbodies in North Dakota and South Dakota collected through creel surveys between 1991 - 2019. The dataset also contains waterbody surface area estimates for each sampled waterbody that were gathered through remote sensing. Finally, the dataset contains waterbody surface area estimates for all public, managed waterbodies within the Devils Lake Basin, North Dakota, USA between 2004 - 2021, along with the climate period that the Devils Lake BAsin was undergoing in a given year.