ND Fishing Report-July 26th, 2026

Written by Mike Peluso

July 26, 2026

So I split my time this week chasing walleyes on the big lake of Sakakawea and chasing bass and musky over on Audubon.  We had a great week catching both the walleyes and bass.  If I was a diehard musky fisherman I guess seeing the one we did is a victory supposedly. 

Sakakawea continues to shine!  I actually fished an entirely different area this week.  I was mainly trying to avoid getting in he way of the DWC guys out prefishing this week.  To my surprise I don’t need to travel very far in order to have fishing.  We caught plenty of really nice fish. 

Not much is different on the eastern portion of Sakakawea as far as presentation and depth goes.  Slow death with a half crawler pulled on points and humps going .9 to 1.0 mph in 12 to 22 foot of water was doing the trick. 

Now over to Audubon where we casted our arms off for bass and musky.  Deep weed edges seemed to be where the bigger smallmouth bass were.  Every time fish over there I’m amazed at the quality of bass you catch.  We even managed a few nice pike and walleyes this way.  

We did find a 40 plus musky lurking a weed edge that showed himself after chasing a bait to the boat.  We put ample amount of time in casting at this fish.  In true musky fashion it didn’t want to show itself again unfortunately.  I believe it could be the same fish we saw last year in just about the same area.  Maybe next year is our year? 

I do have a few scattered dates left up here on Sakakawea if you are interested.  Hard to believe the Sakakawea guide season for me is winding down.  I usually don’t do much for guiding in September, but I plan on hitting the River near Bismarck in full force starting October 1st and will run it hard until freeze up! So get ahold of me if you want a stress free fishing trip.

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