Devil's Lake Reports? - Ice Fishing Forum - Ice Fishing Forum

Good Weather and Good Fishing! (http://tourism.devilslakend.com/devils-lake-fishing/fishing-report-hotspots/)

This past weekend brought us some much needed good weather on Devils Lake, the warm sunny afternoons were not only good for perch fishing but also snow melt. Access and travel on the lake has been getting better every day. Many people are still using snowmobiles and tracked vehicles to move around. I have fished the last 3 weekend with my 4 wheeler that has just tires and haven’t had any issues on getting around.

Now for the fishing, the perch have been hungry now that we have had some stable weather. The depths that the perch have been coming from are variable as some are fishing the deep basins in 35+ feet of water. I personally found my perch in the last 2 weeks up in the shallow mud flats, I found inside turns on my Navionics fishing chart and started drilling holes there. I found most of my perch on these inside turn areas holding up in 14-16 feet of water. The bite has been a little more on the finicky side. I would recommend using an ultralight rod with a sensitive tip or spring bobber to feel this delicate bite. Rattling spoons (the smaller the size, the better) have been working the best. We have been tipping these with minnow heads and also plastic minnow heads. This last week we needed to rattle just a bit to cause a commotion on bottom and then dead stick your lure 6 inches of bottom until you could get the fish up off the bottom and once the fish came off bottom you would slowly rise that lure above them to cause the reaction bite. The bite wasn’t very aggressive and was just more like just having dead weight on your rod (this is where ultralight rods and spring bobbers come into play). Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t consistently marking fish as we were finding these perch coming in waves of 2-3 fish every 10 to 15 minutes. The color of lure varied by day so make sure to have a variety along with you. Another tip to utilize is to drill a second hole in your house for a dead stick with a full minnow on it, it doesn’t hurt to increase your odds buy throwing that extra line in.

The walleye bite has been picking up as well in the early morning and late afternoon. You will find a few walleye mixed in when perch fishing the basins but focus on more of the structure based (rocks, trees, sunken roads, old shorelines, etc.) areas to find these fish. Lure choices have been rattling spoons as well, make sure to have some glow/uv spoons with as it helps when you are fishing these walleyes in the lowlight conditions.

Good luck to everyone fishing this upcoming week, don’t forget to share your catch on our Visit Devils Lake, North Dakota Facebook Page and also use #devilslakend to tag your photos.