Missouri River (tailrace) Fishing Report-Sept 9th, 2018

Written by Mike Peluso

September 9, 2018

Its a scene out of the movie birds up in the tailrace right now. In fact, I felt as though I was groing to fall over with the spins getting dizzy! Lots and I mean lots of smelt of all sizes coming through right now. Mainly fresh young of the year ones but a few bigger ones also. So what does this do to the fishing? Well, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad. For us we mustered a few walleyes, a catfish had 3 other who knows what hooked up while fishing chutes. We did fish downstream for a bit during the daylight hours and caught some nice eating size fish. The key was to fish slow with as light of jigs as you could get away with! The wind was absolutely brutal and that made it tough to go with the size jigs that would have helped us catch more fish especially walleyes in the current. I’m super excited to see this many fish up in the north stretches of the Missouri River here in North Dakota! It’s good breeding stock and for some resin once those fish are up here they stick around all year and turn into resident fish instead of migrators. Another side note to the tailrace region of this river is the the shore anglers looked to be enjoying success. It looked like a lot of walleyes were being caught. Casting floaters out along the east side of the tailrace. Last night I saw easily 25 headlamps along the shore seeing nets coming out. Excited to what fall brings. They are scheduled to cut flows back starting next week. I’m hoping it doesn’t mess up the fall migration back into the system.  Another reminder that I’m offering a discounted rate for all trips on the Missouri River/Lake Oahe until the end of October. Text or call me at(701) 471-8649 or email me here on the site.

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