fishing Devil's Lake the end of June

[bigbucks]

I'm bringing my family, & my sister & b-in-law, & their family up to DL for a week the end of June, 1st of July. Would mostly like to catch walleyes, but crappies, northerns, white bass, or even perch would be fun for the kids & the ladies for some of our time. Any suggestions on what to try for in that time frame, where, & what type of tackle?

Bobber fishing, or jig fishing would be the easiest for the inexperienced anglers, as well as handle a lot of lines in one boat the best. The gals haven't fished much & there are four kids from 3-9, two of them being 6 year-olds, & at least in their case attention span is fair at best. I'd appreciate any info that could help me out. I understand that's generally not a very good time to fish perch.

[smalls]

Sounds like you will have a boatfull!

With that many anglers in the boat and lines in the water, I would avoid trolling, as Devils Lake eats tackle at an alarming rate in the wood.

I would say your best bet is using slipbobbers on the edges of the trees. You can find good wood pretty much anywhere on the lake. Another option that time of year is jigging rock piles, like by the towers. Post up closer to the time you come for some better info.

[Scoot]

What's the latest scoop from Devil's Lake? Any walleyes to be had lately? How deep, what color, male or female bait, etc?

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Scoot

RodsbyEngel: custom made fishing rods

[fiskyknut]

RCL going on out there right now and some of those folks are bringing in some big weights.

fisky

[bigbucks]

Smalls,

We won't all go at once, have to fish in shifts, accept for me of course, got to have a boat operator. One 16' boat won't handle 8 of us. We did fish 3 adults & 3 kids on the Missouri River last year. My brother-in-law & I swore that won't be happening again. 3 kids with minimal fishing experience & patience is at least one too many at a time.

Thanks for the tips everybody, I'll try to remember to post again about a week before we head out. I hope to make this an annual trip, sometime each summer, as my brother's inlaws have a cabin in DL we can use.

[Guest]

Haven't been on the "BIG lake" in over a week and a half. I'm deeply depressed to say the least.

Nice to see ya hanging here to smalls.

[GAR]

bigbucks; just got back from fishing Devils lake, I leave a boat out there, but I didn't use it, there is some great fishing right from shore, we did very well GAR

[bigbucks]

GAR,

If you don't mind sharing, any serious suggestions for the best tactics 2 1/2 weeks from now? If you don't want to post you can drop me an email at [email protected]

If there'd be some decent shore fishing yet then, that might work really well to take our wives & kids part of the time. The whole crew could actually go at one time.

Thanks for any info.

I'm thinking we may start making this an annual trip. I don't really know many people personally that have ever been there or are very interested. I don't know what's wrong with my friends.

[smalls]

Yes Brad, I get around. Got to occupy myself with something during the day when I make my dollars. I will be staying in the camper in next weekend (18-20). Let me know if you're going to be up there, I may be fishing alone.

BB- I was up at DL last weekend. I didn't do well, but the lake was producing quite a few fish for other guys. Some throwing lindy rigs shallow, other guys casting cranks shallow. I talked to a gentleman who was south of Grahams Island that caught walleye and pike all day casting into the shallows. He even had pike try to steal hooked walleyes several times on fish as big as 3#.

Good luck big$

[FishFreak75]

Im also heading up to dl in about 2 weeks would like to no any tips possible. have never fished lake before, but heard it was good. Trying to fish for walleye and pike if any tips even slightest email at [email protected] or [email protected] will apreciate it. also would like to know best place to camp on the water so i can throw a line out and catch some stuff at night. appreciate it a lot bye

[bigbucks]

We're leaving Monday by noon, the drooling problem's getting pretty bad now is we head into the home stretch. I've been looking at reports on the websites for Ed's Bait Shop, Randy's Bait Shop, & Woodlawn Resort. Never should have found the Woodlawn site, the daily pictures of hawger walleyes are just about more than I can handle. I keep emailing them to my brother-in-law to share my torment & now he's complaining about a saliva covered computer. The trip clock's a ticking...

[ifishsd]

Just got back form DL. Fished the 23-25 out of Graham's Island State Park. Fishing was fair. I think the cold and windy slowed the fishing down. Did manage to get a 25, 23, 22, and a 20 inch walleye between two boats.

Also 15 walleyes in the 14 to 15 inch ranage. Most of the big ones were caught on blue rapala casting toward shore.

Fishing was better in the evening for smaller walleye in the trees across from the boat landing. Jigging and slip bobber's worked the best.

[bigbucks]

Fished the lake Tuesday, 6/29-7/3. We got there Monday night, maybe 8:00, didn't fish at all that night. We talked to one of the bait shops Tuesday morning, they tell you a bunch of spots all over the lake. I think most were valid, but we didn't know anything about them, so still was an "exploration" mission.

We basically fished a different part of the lake every day, either from a different access or went a different direction, we wanted to see a lot of the lake & it seemed like you could catch some smaller fish on almost any point, although at greatly varying rates. We were staying on Creel Bay, so usually launched out of there.

We saw a lot of guys cleaning walleyes at the cleaning station & other than one group the first day, who had them from 13-20", they were all basically cleaning 12-13" walleyes, with none bigger. Naturally those were just the people we saw, they were pretty much all local people, we tried to look at license plates or ask them where they were from.

We caught quite a few fish for basically two guys fishing 4-6 hours a day & exploring a lot, but we could have done better. We mostly caught small fish, we had a 22, a 19, an 18 & probably half a dozen in the 16-17" range, but other than that a lot of 12-15" fish. We caught 10 northerns throughout the week from 2 1/2 - 4 3/4 pounds. We didn't fish the roads or trees as much as we should have. We caught over 50 white bass one night from a road bed, that was a lot of fun & the families were with on that outing at least, although most of the fish were caught after they went back to make supper.

We did the best on Faughty Point one day & up in Six Mile Bay another day. We never went back to either spot, as we wanted to keep exploring, so part of our limited success was our own fault, but no problem. We still brought home plenty of fish.