ND Fishing Report-May 18th, 2025

Written by Mike Peluso

May 20, 2025

Muddy waters and lots of wind and rain have been the story for this week.  It’s caused a few cancellations which has actually kept me off the water for the past couple of days. 

We did fish the reel n rec tournament this past Saturday and to my surprise we actually caught a lot of fish.  It’s amazing, but even with the muddy water and rising water on the river the fish still decided to bite and in pretty good numbers. I had my doubts I can’t lie. 

Lots of 14 to 16 inch fish in the the river right now with a few larger fish still hanging around.  I only have two more trips left here on the river before I venture out to Devils Lake for about a month.  Still hard for me to believe the spring in coming to an end. 

With all the drastic changes in conditions and the weather,  it’s hard to say what the fish will do?  I know it’s gonna be a whole new ball game on the river for a bit.  I would imagine as soon as things settle back in you can anticipate another good month here locally of catching good eater sized walleyes. 

As far as Devils Lake is concerned, I think that will need the same to happen.   Some stable weather and I believe that bite will respond.  I’m looking forward to casting and bobber fishing for the next couple of weeks for sure.  It’s a great change of pace for me. 

I’ll spend about 3 weeks at Devils Lake and then I’ll take the guiding over to Sakakawea.  Everything I’m hearing up there has me very excited about how that will go also.  Lots of really nice fish being caught already on the big lake. 

We are so spoiled here in North Dakota to have such great fisheries at our fingertips.  So if you are looking to get out,  just pick one of the big 3 or take your pick of one the prairie lakes the ND Game and Fish have done such a great job creating opportunities on.  You can’t go wrong!

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