Devil's Lake - Report Dec. 10-12

[hanson]

Hello North Dakota Forum!!

Just got back to the cities from your windy, snowy, I can't see the front of my pickup, state. Actually, growing up in Crookston, MN, spending a lot of time in Grand Forks, and going to school in Fargo has taught me to take blizzards in stride. It was actually quite refreshing to see snow even though it was blowing sideways.

Anyway- here's a Devil's Lake fishing report for you ice anglers chomping at the bit to hit the ice.

We pulled into Devil's Lake Thursday night and got comfortable in our hotel. Woke up Friday morning and headed over to Ed's Bait Shop to get the current report. Well, there was no current report! They said nobody has really been venturing on the ice yet and that they wouldn't recommend it either. But I spotted an older gentleman with a bucket of minnows so I knew there was action somewhere. We proceeded to purchase bait and met the man with the minnows in the parking lot. He was as eager to find ice as we were, and was hitting us up for some secret spots. We didn't have any and proceeded to find out he was hitting some northern pike in 6 Mile bay. We told him we were heading to Black Tiger Bay, because we are somewhat familiar with that part of the lake, and might run into him later if we couldn't find fishable ice.

We arrive at the Black Tiger Bay Public Access to find hardly any vehicle tracks and only 1 set of footprints walking onto and off of the ice. We sent our biggest guy onto the ice first. If it was safe for him, it was safe for the rest of us. With ice spud in hand, he headed out and said we would be ok. After augering a few holes, we found the ice to be 4-5 inches but it wasn't solid ice, more like 1/2" plates of ice stacked up and refrozen. It was solid but still pretty weird. We fished for awhile within walking distance to the west & east and couldn't muster a bite. We're now off to find new water.

So we go from the complete east end of the lake to the west via the north side in search of other fisherman or any signs of life on the lake. We ended up in Minnewaukon, chatted at the bait shop, and were told 'good luck'. We headed out on a submerged road, the 'Golden Highway' on my map and fished where the road met the first point a few hundred yards from shore. We ended up with a little 3-4 pound Pike that night. While not overly impressed, we were going to hit this spot again the next day & night.

Saturday, we set out towards Minnewaukon with the intent to check out 6 Mile bay on the way there. We spotted a couple houses towards the north and decided to follow the crowd and check it out. We worked our way down to the bay on a gravel road that dead ended into the bay and continued to come back out of the bay on the opposite side. Ice thickness was approximately 3-4 inches tops where I set up my Otter house. I proceeded to drill holes across the width of the road to establish my position. Tip-ups with smelt went out on the various depths across the width of the road. It took awhile to catch sloughshark #1 but they came with regularity after that. By the time we left, eight Pike were on the ice with another 3-4 missed opportunities. The highlight was getting one of my buddies to land his first tip-up Pike which happened to be the largest at 8lbs. All the Pike averaged 3-5 pounds with one at 6 1/2-7 and the big one at 8.

Ice conditions were deteriorated Saturday with the warm temps. We talked with a gentleman who came out to our houses and said us and the guys fishing across the bay were the biggest group of houses on the entire lake. The guys on the east side of the bay were pulling Pike also. The gentleman mentioned they were by the casino and caught a 1 1/2 & a 4 1/2 pound walleye but that was it. They had to leave because the water on top of the ice was causing it to sag.

To top off the trip, we were greeted to very windy conditions Sunday morning and decided to pack it in. Blizzard conditions from Grand Forks to Alexandria didn't make the trip home any fun.

One thing that I relearned on this trip was being able to adapt. I almost left my bucket of tip-ups at home and if I did, the trip might have been a failure. We initially set out after Perch & Walleyes but were greeted to unfavorable ice conditions and weather. But when we found some areas with favorable ice, we were welcomed with a very good pike bite.

An early season trip like this can be hard to plan and even harder to execute but we were able to make it work. All in all, it was a very successful trip under the circumstances. I just wish we would have fished for pike the entire 2 days, I think we would have had 20+ fish days.