Roy Lake / Kettle - Cattail

[jr712]

Will be fishing these two lakes next week. Have never fished Roy and only ice fished K-C a couple times. Interested in locations and patterns for both, eye and pike. Also any recent fishing reports. Thanks alot - JR

[jr712]

Thanks Brian. I check all those sites on a regular basis.

Have you ever fished Kettle? And do you know how much it has rose since it was just a marsh? just curious. I will send you and email. - Jeff

[ifishsd]

Don't know much about Cattail/Kettle lake. But is you want to cacth a bunch of fish and don't care about keeping them Waubay is the place to go.

[JJJ]

I have had good luck with a gold hammered spinner and a crawler on Cattail. I'm sure other presentations will work just as good or better. If you want to catch numbers definitely go to Waubay, jig and a minnow 10-15ft. I was there last Saturday and I bet we put 100 (average size 15") in the boat before noon. Red Iron was good early, but haven't heard anything lately.

[jr712]

I fish Waubay alot. will probally run down there once next week. But sorta prefer fishing a new lake, more so than fishing a familiar lake and catching lots. Have fished all the lakes around Wauabay but never Roy, Red Iron and only ice fished kettle - cattail. How good is the ramp on kettle? Thanks guys. - Jeff

[Aberdak]

I would say the boat ramp is excellent there. It is right beside Fort Sisseton State park and I believe that a park sticker is required. That is the only boat ramp availble as far as I know. The water was super clear earlier this spring. My buddies could actually see the fish below their boats. This is not a fish story.

[JJJ]

Ramp on Cattail is steep, but concrete. It will cost you a small fee because it is in the park ($3 I think).

[Guest]

By all means fish Waubay. There are no walleyes in Cattail! Nor anywhere else in Marshall County lakes!

[Guest]

That's not true-there are really nice Walleyes in Cattail, Mallard, Buffalo.

This forum is intended to help each other out, so let's be friendly--the resource is for all of us to share

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Chells

[jr712]

Gee Marshall 48, you have lots of walleyes up your way, and pike and S.M.

Now your weather is another thing. Something like 5" of rain last week, 2 days of 35 mph wind, a major front, etc.

Enjoyed two half days on Kettle - Cattail. Found walleyes along the transitions between tree lines and the basin in Cattail. 10 - 13' deep areas with scattered coontail. Also found some fish in the trees but with 1-2 kids in each boat found it difficult for them to fish in there. Also picked up lots of pike and some nice eyes pulling spinners and minnows or leeches in the main basin of cattail, 13-15' deep whereever old cattails are matted on the bottom. Several 8 - 10# pike. Most eyes were 16-19" with a few 22".

Stayed on Roy which had a tremendous S.M. bite going anyplace with rocks shallower than 10'. Also found some decent eye fishing there given the weather with the active fish in 8-12' depths, humps and bars. The eyes were mostly on leeches and crawlers but had a problem with the S.M. and the Lindy type rigs we started with. The eyes were slow to take the bait, the s.m. weren't so had some deep hooked S.M. Switched to unpainted jig tipped with leech or half crawler and a quicker hook set and eliminated the deep hooked fish and still picked up eyes. I only use jigs / bait on Waubay and out at the River, never the snelled rigs, to eliminate deep hooked fish. Wish they would prohibit snells on high catch rate lakes.

Most of the Roy lake S.M. were 14-16" with a couple over the 18" min. and numerous 18" fish lost due to broken lines or throwing hooks. The eyes at Roy were almost all 16 - 21".

One of our boats fished Buffallo a half day and reported decent numbers of eyes and pike althouh many of the eyes were smaller.

Enjoyed great prime rib at Charlies on Cottonwood and friendly and helpful merchants in Britton.

Had one fish fry of pike and eyes for our group of 16 while there. And each family brought back either a partial limit of pike or eyes for one meal at home. Total harvest was around 12 pike, 18 eyes and a few crappies. Everything else went back. The families made reservations again at Roy for next year but some of us will be back several times before then. I really liked Cattail and look forward to fishing it during more stable weather.