Sakakawea Fishing Reports

[MattL]

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Under Your My Stuff link go to preferences and select e-mail me watched topics. Ok...here is the first fishing report. Enjoy.

With the light wind yesterday, which is a rarity in ND, I decided to hit up the east end of the big lake. I got on the water about 8:00 AM and since it was my first time out there with no idea where to start I decided to begin by trolling to locate some active fish.

I started working shoreline breaks in 6-15' with little luck. I tried a few different spots until I slid out deeper and located fish in 15-20'. I put a 1/4 oz jig and minnow in their face and boated several smaller eyes. The quality wasn't there, so I was on the move again. I tried trolling another stretch of shoreline with several submerged points and rock/sand transitions boating 3 15 inch eyes in the first few minutes trolling a purple/chrome #5 shad rap in 10'. I slowed down and worked that shoreline with a jig and minnow and boated A LOT of 15-20" eyes.

After a while of sitting in that area, a crowd of boats had gathered and the bite slowed. I was off again in search of a quiet shoreline and active fish. I got a few here and there in 8'-12', but it wasn't as consistent as the previous spot.

Towards evening I headed back in the direction of the access and noticed the crowd had vanished from the previous spot I was on so I went back and worked the area again until I ran out of minnows. I started trolling again and lost the shad rap I was using to a very large fish. I had a few more purple/chrome shad raps, but decided to try a Helsinki Shad color and that worked equally well. Around 8:00 PM a storm was on the horizon so I threw the 5th fish into the livewell and called it a day.

Drove back to Bismarck through a heavy storm to find most of the roads on the south end of town flooded with 1-2' of water and cars stalled out everywhere.

If you need an updated fishing report for Sakakawea just ask in this thread and I will give it to you right here as soon as I can.

[fishuhalik]

Nice fish Matt! I mainly fish Sak for pike & cats but don't mind the occasional eye. Did you have much action with slimers?

[MattL]

Only a few incidental catches, nothing big - mid 20" fish. Did have something break my line that I'm assuming was one of the big pike Sak is supposedly known for. Also caught a ton of smallies and a few white bass.

[fishuhalik]

Ton of Smallies you say? Hmmm.... I really need to get to know this lake better

[MattL]

I still caught more walleyes than smallies, but still boated at least 15 between 1 and 3 pounds. Being from southern MN I can probably count on one hand the number of smallies I caught before this. They sure fight good. I think this is gonna be a fun lake to fish. I definitely see myself fishing here more often only being a little over an hour away.

[MattL]

I got out on the big lake again yesterday. Went back to the same spot I was on the previous weekend and scanned the area with my electronics and did not mark any fish. I started pitching a 1/4 oz jig and moxie to boulders to see if they were laying tight to the rocks and I was not picking them up on my sonar. I caught a small walleye the first cast and nothing after that. I started trolling down the shore and found a bunch of baitfish and fish about 1,000 yds down the shore. After catching a couple 15" eyes trolling a #5 shad rap I slowed down and tried a variety of presentations, all producing fish but nothing really excelled.

I started off pitching a jig and minnow to flooded trees, but kept loosing the minnow as I worked over branches so I switched to a firecracker/chart tail ringworm. A few casts later I hooked my PB pike, just shy of 40". This was on a 6'-9" ML Fenwick with 8 lb line. I didn't realize how big this fish was as she swam towards the boat. As it got closer, it went straight down and I thought she tangled up in branches, but she was just holding her ground on the bottom. After circling the boat several times and several long runs I had her in the net. She was safely released to fight another day.

I caught walleyes on jigs/plastics, jigs/minnows, lindys/minnows, and slip bobbers, but nothing was as consistent as trolling. For me, trolling is a good way to locate fish and fill the box but I was looking to have a little fun with lighter gear. I ended the day with a couple walleyes around 23-24" and (5) 15" keepers. I threw back a few more keeper size fish and several <14". All fish were caught in 8-12'.

[fishuhalik]

Slayin em, keep it up! I gotta get out there!

[MattL]

Fishing is still pretty good on Sakakawea. I did not catch as many as the last couple times out, but I was searching out new locations. On Saturday I found water temps up 10 degrees from the last time I was out 2 weeks ago. I found fish a little deeper in the 14'-16' range. On Sunday air temps dropped 30 degrees and water surface temps dropped 5 degrees after a storm rolled through Saturday night.

On Saturday I tried an area with very rocky bottom. I only caught 10 walleyes with 3 15" keepers and a 24" - the rest were 12-14". The 24" came in 15' of water on a purpledescent scatter shad pulled behind 2 colors of lead. I also used purple/chrome and blue/chrome. A couple of the fish came on hammered gold spinners with whole crawlers.

I tried another area Sunday with softer bottom and curly leaf pondweed as well as flooded trees. Numbers of fish were better, but size was way down. I kept 2 15" walleyes and threw back about 30 from 10-14". Depths were in the 14-16' range with a few coming shallower and a few deeper. I burned through 2 dozen crawlers fairly quickly then switched to cranks. I tried a lot of different colors and profiles all of them producing, but nothing better than the others.

The northerns were on fire both days. I caught a lot of 25-30" fish as well as at least a half dozen over 30". I did have very nice one about 40"+ hit a walleye as I reeled it in. I was trolling and a small fish hit, as I picked up the rod it doubled over and started screaming drag. I thought I was snagged up on a tree branch so I started shaking it and it let loose. A couple seconds later it slammed it again and when I thumbed the spool to break free from the snag I felt a couple head shakes. I kicked the motor into neutral and brought the fish to the boat a couple times but the third time he realized he could just let go and down he went. The walleye was about 13" and beat up pretty badly.

I marked alot of baitfish in 25-30' when I would swing around on my trolling runs. I did not pick up any bigger fish on the downscan so I did not try that deep. Looking back, I probably should have made a few passes with leadcore to see if I could find some quality fish hanging with the baitfish but I'll save that for the next time out.

[MattL]

On Saturday morning the weather was a chilly 41 degrees when I launched and the bite was downright tough (for me anyways). I started out in the 6-12' range and caught a bunch of northerns. I kept trying different depths until finally connecting with a 26" eye in 22' of water on a gold spinner with crawler. Unfortunately I don't have a picture as I was by myself without the camera ready or water in the livewell. I did not want to stress the fish while I got things ready. A short time later I connected with a 24" walleye in 20' of water on the same rig. (pictured below). The rest of the day was pretty dead for walleyes except for a 15" walleye caught in 24' of water that went home in the cooler for Sunday morning breakfast. I cannot believe how many mid 20" northerns there are in that lake. I may have to look up a pickling recipe and keep a few of them.

The weather was nice though. It kind of felt like I should have been headed out bow hunting instead of hooking the boat up Saturday morning.

[MattL]

I got back to Sak for the first time in about a month yesterday afternoon. I quickly found walleyes in 24-28' on the east end. I spent the afternoon trolling leadcore with scatter shads and shad raps. Hot steel and purple/chrome size 7 worked best. I managed to boat a half dozen between 12" and 20". I also lost at least twice that many in that size range boatside. They were just barely hooked on the rear treble. It was very frustrating. I tried slowing down, kicking the boat into neutral, and different bait sizes/profiles but they were just not hitting hard and I did not have live bait.