South Dakota!

Well that’s a wrap folks! What a amazing fishery this state has! Dad and I left Friday at noon for the land of perch and walleyes. We arrived at 4 to the access and had lines in the water by 4:15. The amazing thing was the water clarity had gone from pea soup green to gin clear in the past month putting a huge damper on the leadcore trolling bite. After a few adjustments like putting the trolling rods away we boxed 3 beautiful walleyes and 2 jumbos and got off the water at 11:00.
Saturday morning broke with a slight chill and a light breeze. After Fridays poor trolling bite we made the decision to pitch jigs and cranks to shallow weeds and what a awesome decision that turned out to be! We boxed way north of 200 fish on Saturday with the majority of those fish being 8-14″ walleyes with the odd 12-15″ perch mixed in. There was a 45min stretch where every single cast had dad and I reeling in a fish. The bait of choice was a 3/16 h2o jig with a 4″ gulp nightcrawler or a #12 husky jerk. We ended the day with 8 walleyes from 17-22″ and 14 perch from 12-15″ simply amazing fishing.
Sunday we woke to the same conditions but the fish moved a little deeper but still in the same general area and still as hungry as we left them on Saturday. We fished until 1:00 and when we couldn’t touch another fish pulled the plug on a awesome South Dakota open water season.
I’m confidant that the new spots we found this weekend will be phenomial early ice spots! Now it’s just a waiting game for hard water!!

We just got back fishing the Waubay area and it was amazing. We got there at midnight on Tuesday, and Wed the water was somewhat green but by Friday it was as clear as I have seen it. The lakes are starting to turn over and the fish were everywhere. This did make the fishing a little tougher but it was still great.

In 4 days of fishing we boated over 600 walleyes and 150 Perch. Most of the Walleyes were 9 to 12″ but we had our limits of 18 to 22″ fish everyday. The Perch as you said were 13 to 14″ with an occasional just over 14″.

We fished mainly pulling bottom bouncers with spinner blades to try and keep the smaller walleyes off out lines. We did jig fish a little with good success. My cousin had a monster walleye follow a small walleye that he had hooked. We estimated it at 12 plus lbs, we tried immediately throwing plugs to see if we could get it to bite but never had a hit.

I will post some pics tonight!!! It was the best weather that we have ever had out there.