I promised a Lake Sakakawea Fishing Report after my last Devils Lake Report.
I just spent the last 3 days on the Van Hook Arm. This has been my favorite place to fish since the mid 80’s. The stories I could tell about making day trips to Parshall with a 4 cylinder Toyota pick up and a 16 foot Yar-Craft tiller would be stories for a book! Luckily gas was cheap back in those days.
Anyway, we better get back to the fishing report for you. Overall I thought the fishing was really good. Not last year good yet, but if you compare it to most everywhere else in the Walleye World it’s pretty damn good! The fish we caught seemed to relate best to the 18 to 25 foot depths. We caught some walleyes shallower and we caught some deeper. Once again, propeller rigs seemed to shine! Silver and green were best tipped with a half crawler. We also caught some nice fish on a plain old slow death hook and a half crawler. We pulled maybe a little slower than most, going .6 to .8 working the edges of the structure. The edges of all the structure we fished the last 3 days was key!
Some of the more popular islands are starting to show signs of life!
Another thing that was working, and we didn’t do it long, was pulling flicker minnows in 20 to 28 foot of water. The same held true pulling cranks as it did livebait. You needed to stay on the edges of the structure. Starting to see a lot more smelt showing up, and I think this is the number one driving force pulling the fish to the structure.
I still have some openings in August and more in September. I think the bite is going to be rockstar the next couple of months! Email me mikepelusooutdoors@gmail.com and let’s book a trip! Multiple days and lodging are also available upon request!