What an interesting week on Lake Sakakawea.  I will apologize, but this report is going to be long.  I promise you though, you will want to read it to the end, especially if you plan to fish Sakakawea anytime soon! 

I tested the waters as a guide for a couple days, and also fished the Aim State Championship with Jason Feldner to see how I held up.  Overall I did ok.  Definitely not a 100 percent but I played a lot of hockey games at 70 percent so fishing if done carefully I figured I could manage. 

The Doctors said to try and live life (slower and careful of course) until at least Oct 6th when I need to go in for tests etc again to learn my fate. My fingers are crossed that the big guy is helping me heal up some and get me back to the new normal for me. 

I had to make a couple changes to help me along.   The first one was with wave pro seat donated by Pro Marine here in Bismarck.  I can’t believe it took me going down to find these amazing seat bases! Another life saver for me is Jon Thelen of Destination Fish TV, helped me with an Ulterra Quest trolling motor.  Not having to run up to the front of the boat to pull a trolling motor was huge. These two additions with my new condition made it for me.  Thank you so much guys! 

Now to the fishing.  Of course for me I’m not gonna lie.  Being on the water everyday as a guide I can usually follow the trends of the fish pretty easily.  Starting from scratch had me a little puzzled.  Talking to friends who were fishing kept telling me how tough things had been.  I decided on day one to go to a very high percentage area.  It paid off and I thought I was back on track. 

Little did I know things were about to change again while I was guiding.  Day 2 wasn’t what I anticipated.  We got done fish but it wasn’t nearly the same as the first day I felt something was off.  Full moon, super warm temps, winds and storms were all playing a hand in things. 

Day 3 the day before the tournament I made a choice of heading to an area I hadn’t fished all summer long.  We prefished it hard.  The winds kept me away from getting to a bunch of stuff I really wanted to look at.  My partner for the tournament was out also the same 3 days and his pre fish wasn’t exactly stellar either.  

So with the 3 days we had both Jason and I decided to start where I had done really well on Wednesday my first day back.  Unfortunately the 22 to 25 inch fish I had caught there Wednesday would not bite.  We could see them on the livescope chase and look, but they would not bite.  We left it after a few hours.  

I told Jason we need to get back into pre fish mode and try and figure something out.  We took off and started checking things.  We hit about a half dozen spots and picked up enough to at least have a full card but I wasn’t happy.  With about an hour left to fish we were running back and I told Jason to swing into an area I had guided many times this summer.  

Of course when I had guided it earlier in the year, fish were pretty shallow.  I told Jason the shallow stuff looked exactly the same as it did when I had done super well in this spot.  The current and the stained water was exactly how it was.  So I turned the boat up shallow and pointed the livescope in 8 to 12 foot and boom, fish! 

Of course on Sakakawea you never know this time of year if those shallow fish are bass, carp and for some reason all the sudden catfish.  But I’ve stared at a livescope enough to know that these fish looked like walleyes.  After a pass with nothing, I started to doubt my previous experience and knowledge playing the livescope game.  

I’m glad I told myself to trust my gut and circled back for another pass.  It didn’t take long into the second pass and we caught a decent fish, and for this day an upgrade.   We started catching fish, but the clock was working against us.  We basically put our first days weight on the card in the last 20 mins we had before we needed to go back.  

Day 2 of the tournament I felt a lot more confident going out.  The weather was terrible with wind, rain, lightning and switching winds.  Upon getting to our spot things had remained the same as we left it.  The fish were willing for us right away throwing jig raps at them on livescope and dragging creek chubs.  

The fish started up pretty shallow right away.  Unfortunately, the wind changed direction and muddied up the water really bad where we were catching them.  The fish were still there but I don’t think they could see our baits anymore unless you hit in on the head.  No matter because we had a decent bag of a little more than 22 pounds for 5 fish. 

So overall, I was happy how things ended.  Talking with other tournament guys most echoed the same thing that the fish were a bit finicky but the more aggressive fish were definitely shallow! Didn’t have to worry about barotrauma and hurting these fish.  All of our fish caught during the tournament lived and so did most of the field for the most part. 

Again, sorry that got a little long.  It still amazes this old tournament angler in me as to how much you learn fishing tournaments compared to just guiding or fishing casually.  You think outside the box, you see and talk to fellow competitors and gain so much from it.  Super fun week on Sakakawea for sure with lots of ups and downs!