And just like that…overnight actually the water cleared up on the Missouri River and the fish decided to come around as well.

Crank baits, specifically jointed flicker shads were working well during the dirty water from recent rains out in western ND. This bait was definitely putting numbers in the boat and some extremely big fish in the boat.

Now since the water has cleaned up it feels like April fishing out here. The fish are hitting jigs and minnows with a vengeance. It’s sort of bittersweet for me. The bite is firing up and hitting on all cylinders and I’m just about done guiding on the Missouri River near Bismarck until October.

What’s in tap for me? Well, I’ll be sliding over to Devils Lake to guide until mid June and over to Sakakawea until mid July. After that I’ll be splitting time between both Sakakawea and Devils Lake. That’s good news for everyone however. I’ll have great reports coming in from both bodies of water. Hopefully helping you speed up the search mission.

In the meantime, get the kids out on the water. The action is good and should help in getting them hooked on fishing.