Devils Lake Fishing Reports

Report For Wednesday thru Sunday;

 

Fishing remains mixed and ever changing. Out east; there has been a lot of fish be caught in the Browns bay, some hit or miss in the Haybale area and Penny bay is starting to heat up. Main bay area, folks are having some luck in the Doc Hagens area, north of the bridge in 6 mile and just south of the six mile boat launch and the south end of Creel bay. Ramp at six mile is in great condition and the fish cleaning station is back up and running. Out West, Howards farm is producing some fish along with a few of the “new” bays created on the south end of the lake. Another hot spot for some has been the north west corner of the lake, north of Minnawalkin/west of old 281/south of 19 if that makes any sense. BE CAREFUL crossing old 281 it is shallow!!!!!! Mauvee coulee has still been slow but shore fisherman are finding some fish towards evening.

Ok, so there’s the spots now how they catchin’em? Once again, mixed bag of tactics. Bottom bouncers with worms and leeches targeting the outside weed lines in about 10 FOW standard gold or silver spinners. Cranks have been decent casting to structure, your standard Devils Lake colors, firetiger, chrome blue, perch, hot steel ect. Slip bobber bite has been kinda slow during the day, lots of little fish, but towards the afternoon it has been starting to heat up. Mimics have been my stable over the last two weeks and yielding good results but expect that to start dying off as the water temps start rising.

Hope this gives you some starting points, fishing in general has been a bit slower than normal for this time of the year and here is why I think that is. Water temps remain low, fished 66 degree water yesterday up in Pelican but the weed growth rate is still very fast. The fish are in the weeds/reeds and with the weed growth they are getting harder to get to and they have no reason (temp/food) to leave from there. With the new rain fall, Saturday night was a doozy, and lower temps for the beginning of this week I don’t see much changing. Towards the end of the week things should start picking back up. We really need to see that water temp get into that 70 range then things will really heat up.

Now a shout out to the set of clients I had out on Saturday. They wanted pictures and big fish, eaters if we ran across them. Their first 4 fished weighed in at 4.7, 5.3, 6.1, and 4.8. There 5^th fish weighed in at a rocking 7.8lbs breaking their personnel best! Congrats guys!! We were fishing in Pelican using 3/8 mimic minnows  in the reed lines that didn’t have a lot of weeds in front of them.

And finally, the big, big, big fish award goes toooooooo…………Two guys on this site. Wont say their names because they can tell their own story but it was just short of 10lb walleye caught on a Salmo Hornet. Congrats guys!!!!

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Sunday the 19th I went out on East Bay.  Fished around the Dairy Farm with bottom bouncers spinners and crawlers.  Found a nice spot and picked up 10 kept 5 eyes. Sizes about from 17-24 inches.  Sunny day 10-15 mph from SE blowing right into the North side of the lake on that nice piece of structure and was doing well. One smaller pike also. No white bass thank you very much!

Later that evening I got a call about the 28,000 cf/s coming through Sherwood and that I should cut my trip short.  I was planning on staying till Monday afternoon but decided to go home.

Day before on Saturday my uncle and I were pulling cranks in Brown's Bay watching everyone around us catching eyes.  We switched to bbs & crawlers and picked up four in short order.  Then had to head in about 3:30 for refreshments.  I wanted to go back yesterday but water is blocking the roads.  Next weekend then.

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Sunday the 19th I went out on East Bay.  Fished around the Dairy Farm with bottom bouncers spinners and crawlers.  Found a nice spot and picked up 10 kept 5 eyes. Sizes about from 17-24 inches.  Sunny day 10-15 mph from SE blowing right into the North side of the lake on that nice piece of structure and was doing well. One smaller pike also. No white bass thank you very much!

Later that evening I got a call about the 28,000 cf/s coming through Sherwood and that I should cut my trip short.  I was planning on staying till Monday afternoon but decided to go home.

Day before on Saturday my uncle and I were pulling cranks in Brown's Bay watching everyone around us catching eyes.  We switched to bbs & crawlers and picked up four in short order.  Then had to head in about 3:30 for refreshments.  I wanted to go back yesterday but water is blocking the roads.  Next weekend then.

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Was out on Friday (24th) and did pretty well. Went up on Pelican Lake and found an isolated patch of flooded trees that the wind was blowing across. Casted #5 firetiger shadraps and jigs with leaches into the trees and caught 5 quality walleyes that ranged from 17.5-23 inches. Also caught a lot of northerns of varying size. The northern to walleye ratio was probably 2:1. I believe in giving credit where credit is due so would like to thank Ed's Baitshop for some good advice on where to try as well as the update on the ramps and road opening status. Also would like to thank the folks at West Bay Campground for letting me clean fish there. They took a bad flooding situation and turned it into a nice campground.

For those who haven't been up to Devil's Lake yet this year, the flooding is real bad. Really need to commit to the area of the lake you want to fish, as you cant boat under bridges and a few ramps are closed. Also expect delays on some roads. Some are down to one lane and you have to wait for pilot cars to escort you through. You read about it all in the news, but when you see all the water its still quite a shock.

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 Made the day trip from fargo; havent been up to the big lake in over a year.   I have to admit the last times that i have fished dl -- its been on the east side exclusively.    With the ramp situation --- i did not know where to go to get on the east side -- so decided on the west.    You could not ask for a better day.   Put in at six mile and went to howards farm.   The ramp was not packed.  Fair number of pros in howards.   Bottom bounced, threw cranks and did a little bobber action.   Northerns northerns and more northerns on the cransk, one jumbo perch, no walleye.  The slips that i seen catching were small eyeballs-i went to tie up some but was unimpressed.    Moved on to New Mill-- dead sea.  Moved onto doc hagens --- more northerns but at least we end up catching a few nice eye  18 and 20.  fow 9.   Cleaning station at six mile -- we were the only guys walleye. i was very surprised, made me feel better but still not feeling good.  Spoke to a few tourney guys and they said it was tough.  By the looks of the numbers as least on the MWC side - it was very tough.

I know a lot of blame has been weather.   IMO fish always eat.    Weather has been a non issue with the MN slottos.    The amount weed cover in devils lake since i first fished it in 96 is unbelievable.   With all the new water and weeds --- what more perfect  place to put some cheap fry in greg power- my rant.    

Hope to be back up on 23 to redeem myself.  Iin the mean time were off to akaska for the 4th and up to leech for the following week.   shorthairs  keep your lines loose!

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Fished east Devils Lake, started out catching walleye in 4-8 feet with crankbaits, little later found them in 10-12 feet with bottom bouncers and spinners.  nothing really big, but quite a bit of action.  kept 10 good eaters.  a few white bass of course.

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I caught 2 walleyes 1 pike and I had one huge white bass on but it snapped my line.

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Fished Dead Cow Bay saturday afternoon into the evening off of shore and did pretty well.  Mid afternoon was fairly slow with a fish here and there casting and slip bobbering with leeches.  About 1930L the fished moved in and had steady action all the way up until we quite at 2300L.  Slip bobbering was the ticket in the beginning with the leach about 3 feet below the bobber in 4-5 ft of water.  Size did not matter.  There was about 90 minutes where I couldn't even hardly put my rod down and the bobber would be going under already!  Closer to dark the leeches started slowing down and I started getting them on a #5 firetiger shad rap.  Another father and son were doing pretty well casting mimic minnows as well. Brought home 8 walleye ( 2 smaller fish, gilled hooked, 3 between 16-18 inches, and 3 between 19-22 inches) also 3 white bass between 3-4lbs.  All in all we caught 20-25 walleye, half a dozen northern, and the 3 white bass.  Great trip finally after being skunked the last 2 trips.

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Went to DL Thursday and fished three days. Caught more walleyes adn northerns than eny other time on DL but mostly smaller fish. Cranks were the answer for us, I think we were on teh opposite end of the lake too. We stayed at Westbay Resort owned by Jim and Diane (what a great place by the way - really nice people) and fished the west end and Pelican. We had to go through about 25 eyes to get a keeper at 16"-18" but had a few at 18-23 as well. The snot rockets certainly kept us busy all weekend with only a few over 27". Looking forward to a fall trip to get in on the ducks too.

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Fished probably the opposite side of the lake from Walynut this weekend. Had a ton of fun. We caught lots of fish also but had to sort through smaller ones to get the limits. A few on cranks but mostly bouncers with spinners. Still shallow though 8-12ft mostly. What a great weather weekend for fishing.

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Quick report, fishing is really picking up! Pulled multiple limits with folks this weekend and all but two fish were between 18-20. The two smallers were 16. Reeds, reeds, and more reeds and when your done with the reeds, go find some more reeds!! Get the picture? The reeds we are targeting are in 3 FOW casting up to them and pulling your baits across the baby new weeds beds growing up in front of them. We caught them on newmerous baits including cranks, perch, chrome/silver, viking; all Salmos. Mimic minnows were also pretty hot. Heading back up in the morning for another week of fishing, try to get out another report soon.

PS-Did  mention reeds????

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Irvin is on fire right now.  It seems like 2 out of 3 shore lines will produce.  The fish up there act like canadian fish.  Never seen a lure or crankbait in there life and they just slam em!!  Work weed lines in 3 to 10 fow.  Any color seems to work.

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Not too many hours on the water this year because of work commitments and weather issues (wind).  From friends the consensus is that the most dependable bite has been in the evenings.  Last weekend the bite was very slow on Saturday (calm water, no breeze) .  Once the breeze picked up the bite improved.  The encouraging sign was that trolling crankbaits worked so I think the bite will improve from here on if the weather would be more stable.

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Going up to Devils Lake Thursday through Sunday - hopefully the weather will cooperate. Any idea why Ed's hasn't updated since May? Is the fishing really that bad? I will post a report Monday on the action. We are staying at Westbay Resort so access should not be too big of an issue.

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   We are thinking about heading to Devils around the 4th will the shore fishing still be decent? Thanks in advance.

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