Happy Easter to everyone! If you live here in North Dakota you will know what I am talking about but I think our weather has been belly up at a bar somewhere here recently.
We did get some much needed moisture this week in the form of snow. It’s definitely sidetracked a few of us from being on the water everyday. I had a nice streak of consecutive days fishing and scouting, but I took a few days off here.
In my young and dumb days I would have still been out there. Fortunately for me I still have about 150 plus days headed my way with many of those days where I will have to be out there no matter what.
As for the fishing before our April snows. Fishing was hot and heavy especially in the southern stretches of the river. When I say southern I mean city limits of Bismarck south about 20 miles or so was the best.
We saw a push of some really big walleyes down in that Hazelton stretch of river. Pretty typical of what takes place out here every spring.
The river is taking on two different looks right now and I’m hoping this will change a little with the recent moisture. I’m not sure if the snow will dirty up the water north of the Heart River or not? Seems like it’s soaking into the ground more than making it into the river.
The water down south has that perfect stain to it. This warms up faster in shallow water and those big girls are definitely up on the sand sunning themselves. Jigs with bigger plastics are catching a bulk of those bigger 28 inch plus fish.
The water north of the Heart River is a completely different story. Last Tuesday when I was out you could see down 6 foot plus in areas. This makes those fish up north a lot tougher to catch than the fish down south.
Jigs and minnows are catching the numbers and the jigs and plastics are definitely catching the bigger fish. The 10 day forecast is staying on the cooler side which should hold our water temps down.
I think things are really going to heat up now these next couple of weeks. Things get busy for me starting Monday and I’m looking forward to getting back into the groove of things.
I don’t have anymore open dates for the river this spring. I have a couple late May dates and early June dates open for Devils Lake and some August openings for Lake Sakakawea.
