1st Time to Devils Lake ND

[muc33]

Got home after a white knuckle 8 hour drive yesterday! The roads from the North Dakota Border to Watertown SD were horrible at best. But we made it.

Fishing Devils Lake. Let me start by saying. Do your homework first. Find out some stuff before you go, baits, depths, bite patterns, travel mechanisms, and in my opinion, stay somewhere where that help is located. We stayed at Woodland. It is a first Class operation. The staff there were very helpful, the accommodations were some of the best I've stayed at. Tips, hints and honest tries to get you on fish were what we got, how can a guy argue with that? My hats off to the entire Woodland staff.

As far as the fishing. Well, you had to work. And at times you had to work even harder. We fished another lake for perch because the weather had really driven the perch bite to a slow crawl. At least for our standards. We drove to a smaller slough type lake and battled the deep snow to find perch in the 9-12 inch range. We were told though that those were the smaller variety. I was happy with those! We ended up with over 60 and lots of shovel blisters! That was Thursday. On Friday we focused on Walleyes and hit Devils with the snowmobiles and did some ice trolling. Hit a structure spot, drill some holes, jig like crazy, if nothing in 20 minutes, pack it in and move. I never pulled my portable cover off all day on Friday. Fished off my sled all day. We ended up with 26 in the bucket and another dozen or so thrown back a little too small for our liking. On Saturday we debated going for a drive again to hit the perch, but with the weather front that came in and winds out of the 3rd direction in 3 days, and snow falling, we decided to stick on Devils but to spread our group of 6 out on the lake in different spots, trying to pick up some of the bigger Devils Lake Perch. We fished shallow flats, deep rock piles, flooded timber, points and more. It was work, but by talk of the cleaning shack we proved successful. The weather had made the bite a bit slower but we managed another 15 walleye and 4 of the Devils Lake famed perch! We decided that after the work we put in, we were going to sleep in on Sunday and hit the road as the weatherman forecasted some pretty sketchy travel conditions through South Dakota and SW Minnesota, so in hind sight we made the right call as travel was horrible in Northern South Dakota.

Overall a very fun trip. We stayed at a very nice place, with possibly the best cleaning shack I have ever been in. And we caught fish everyday. I won't lie, it wasn't fast and furious, but we got plenty of fish, heck we've done plenty of trips where you don't bring a thing home and get one meal at the cabin while up there, we worked and got them.

Head up to Devils Lake, get a game plan first, find out some stuff about bite conditions from where you are staying and be willing to have some fun. Even if you have to work at it. Our best producing tackle were smaller Buckshots with minnow head. When we traveled for perch we used wax worms and/or plastics and downsizing seemed to work the best.

Now I can't wait to make my reservations at Woodland and try Devils Lake for open water!

[spear foot 1]

Thanks for report, we are heading out thursday for a week, would like to postpone it a week but every body has there vaction time at work to deal with so its go now or not at all. We are bringing atv with chains, dont have enough snowmobiles. Guess have to make do, but thinking should be some place to get on with atvs like grahams island or access west of six mile.

[Jiggawhopper13]

From what I heard that, that I guess people could get around with 4x4 but have to be careful of drifting. And the guys that were out there did really well, so we are leaving Fri morn and couldn't be anymore excited.

[lungdeflator]

Thanks for the report! would have been helpful to hear a report like that before last weekend.

We fished saturday and sunday on Devils Lake. No sleds or atvs, we parked on the road and walked out. Fished off a winter access on the south side of East Bay on saturday. Started out in 21-22fow and moved to 24-25fow, just flats. We found 4 big perch and 3 walleye in the 24-25fow all day. Forage minnows green and glow and orange and glow were the colors producing under bobbers. Small orange and glow and green jigging spoons produced on the jigging rods.

Sunday we fished the west side of mission bay, again just parking on the road and walking out. Started out in 22-23fow again and caught 3 walleye. moved to 31fow and caught a few big perch and 2 more walleye. Then i moved onto a tiny 24ft hump that dropped off to 30fow on all sides. Found another big perch there and then 9 walleye from 6-7pm. After 700 it shut off.

Overall access and mobility is very limited unless you have a sled or tracked vehicle. There were spots of slush along shore, I would not have liked to chance driving on the lake without a plowed road ahead of me.

[MuskieFever]

Thanks for the reports! I've had a tough season on Devils this year and haven't really been out there in over a month and a half due to tough conditions and rough reports. Glad to hear you scratched out some quality fish!

[spear foot 1]

Well we leave tommorow and plan on fishing around grahams island and six mile, so if you see a red arctic cat tbx sticking out of a snow bank you can pull me out,lmao

[lispeej]

Nice report lung! Nothing like devils lake fish. Nice and clean! Best tasting fish in the Midwest.....IMHO.