I honestly cannot believe this is my last spring river fishing report. It just feels like we all got cheated out of a nice long spring here. It is what it is so here we go.

Let’s reflect back a little. The river opened up here in mid March kinda like normal. Maybe a few days later, but the water was good. It was definitely lower than normal, but usually when it starts out low, it changes and dishes itself out. It did just that, and navigating and access was decent. The fishing wasn’t bad either.

Just as the spring was chugging along. We were in full force guide mode. Big fish seemed to be finding the floor of the boat daily. As we were closing into the primo time for big fish, a blizzard rocked us. Of course this put everything on hold. I lost over two weeks of guide trips along with my partners.

Obviously with snow like that comes run off. I felt like the snow melt wasn’t going to do much. As expected around Bismarck anyway it was melting slow and soaking into the ground. However, the following storm brought a ton of rain and that poured the mud into the mighty mo. The river held true to its nickname the big muddy.

The interesting part was even with the dirty water fish were still being caught. I was pleasantly surprised by this but I certainly wasn’t complaining. Folks weren’t fishing and we had the southern stretch of the river to ourselves. In fact, it was fairly quiet down there all the way through the Big Muddy Tournament. Easy for me to say this now, but I kinda wish I was in it this year. We were having a great week leading up to the event catching on average 3 big fish a day on a few baits that just seemed like the magic bait.

Once, we got past the Big Muddy I thought it was clear sailing. Oh man was I wrong! Just when fishing was really getting going again, boom the western side of the state got drilled with a huge rain event and this dumped a lot of water into the Knife River. This is the mud slinger for sure, and holy man did it. Once again we forced into grind mode trying to fish through super muddy and cold water.

For me this might be the latest I’ve guided on the river. Each spring I think I could extend it more and more. However, Devils Lake is calling my name first. After a few solid weeks at Devils I’ll put a pretty good shift at Sakakawea. August looks like a little back n forth for me. This week on the river has been exceptionally good!

Jigs and minnows, jigs and plastics, and cranks have all been good! 3 to 12 foot of water behind or alongside the sandbars have been good for bigger fish. The numbers of fish are along the faster rock stretches. Again, bittersweet for me to say the least. I will be back in full force this fall however! Speaking of this, if you are thinking about fishing with me in October and November I’ll have lots of weekdays available. If it’s anything like it was last fall it will be awesome.

Starting next week I’ll be bringing both Devils Lake and Sakakawea reports to you. Thanks for following!