SD/ND Fishing Trip Advice

Hello everyone, it has been a long, long time since I have posted here, but still enjoy checking in and reading a couple of times a week. As is per my usual I am looking for advice once again from this esteemed group of of fishermen. En lieu of potentially losing out chance to make our annual Lac Seul trip due to Covid-19, our group has been kicking the tires on a few back up options for this year in mid June.

First of all we want to target Crappie and Walleye primarily. My vote from the beginning has been LOTW in the NW Angle with Flag Island or Sunset Lodge. That idea has received some push back from the group so I’d like to hear from you if you have any suggestions for lodges and locations we could find good fishing in South and North Dakota. I know Webster, Watertown and Devils will be popular responses but I’d like to hear your rationale and reasoning for enjoying those locations you have visited and fished at. Thanks for all of the advice in advance!

Ice11 if you want crappies and eyes Devils lake is out. Very few crappies. I’ve heard they catch 1 occasionally but no one targets them.

Mx, that is what i thought and thanks for the reply. The thinking was that if we couldn’t target the crappies in Devils then the perch would more than make up for it if we felt like Devils presented the best Walleye fishing.

Lake Oahe. Always good walleye fishing and the perch and crappies are presenting some fun bonus options lately.

I really like fishing devils. We went last summer and it was my first time fishing it open water. We had 3 days and I wanted to fish the 3 parts of the lake. We had a few leads on some areas to try but I wanted to find my own bite. Day 1 was really windy. We battled the wind and managed a 60 fish day. Second day was a new area, same deal but no wind. We beat the walleye up again. The third day was another new area and was able to once again just put the smack down on the walleye. It’s a fun lake that you can fish any way you like. We jigged minnows and leaches, then we pulled cranks and snap jigged with jiggin raps, ran bottom bouncers, slip bobbers, anything you can think of we tried and were successful. It was nice to build up confidence with some new presentations methods!

Lake Sakakawea has good walleye fishing, not sure about crappie. I personally have not fished it but my dad has and does well out there.

More centrally located in SD and a closer drive would be Lake Thompson, Dry, Waubay,Bitter and plenty of other large water bodies that are excellent fishing for all species with generous limits. Lakeside cabins and guides are readily available for pretty reasonable too. Nice thing is you don’t have to drive more than 15 miles in any direction to hit another lake where the fish might be turned on, less pressure,wind, or different structure.