I had an opportunity to fish NE South Dakota from mid-day Friday, September 13th until mid-day Sunday, September 15th with my good friend Brett. We fished 5 different lakes for several different species.
I was in contact with Quintin Biermann prior to our departure to check in on what the bite had been like and some lakes to consider. We had a major weather change to deal with as the temperatures dropped from the mid 80s down into the 60s/low 70s just prior to our arrival.
Our goal for the trip was to get into some South Dakota jumbo perch and walleyes. We started off Friday afternoon on a lake that perch reports had been good on. It didn’t take long and we found some willing biters in the basin, including some true jumbos up to 12/13 inches. Our bite window didn’t last long as we caught 7 perch in the first hour and then the bite died.
We fished Friday evening on Waubay and found every species besides walleyes and perch. The white bass on Waubay were going crazy and we caught them every place we fished that was relatively shallow. It was fun to tussle with these aggressive biters, although they weren’t the target species.
We started out Saturday morning on the same lake we stared on Friday afternoon hoping to find some nice perch again. It didn’t take long for us to realize that the perch were not cooperating. We started trolling the 10 to 14 foot weedlines/breaks with Flicker Shads, Jointed Shad Raps, and Salmo Hornets and started catching fish immediately. Most of these fish were pike with some of them up to 6 pounds. We did manage a half dozen walleyes with 3 of these being perfect size for the frying pan.
Our next stop was Bitter Lake and we started off vertical jigging a sunken island and immediately started catching a whole bunch of 10 to 14 inch walleyes. The next move was to try leadcore and cranks for walleyes in the basin. I had a fish on my second line just as I engaged the reel to set it in the rod holder. A nice 18 inch walleye hit a number 9 Flicker Shad. After about an hour of trolling with only 1 other small walleye to show we decided to leave and try a different lake.
The lake of choice for Friday evening was a lake that the walleyes had been biting very well on but the bigger ones over 15 inches were harder to find. We started off vertical jigging right in flooded timber and caught lots of walleyes but they were all 13 to 14 inch fish. Wanting to find some bigger fish we started trolling crankbaits right on the edge of flood trees and caught 20 to 30 walleyes about as fast as you can imagine with many doubles but they were all small. We lost one really nice fish that likely was a bigger walleye and caught a 13 inch perch in a 50 yard stretch and decided to set up there for the prime time dusk bite. Again, the fish were biting as fast as you could catch them with not a lot of size. We ended up catching a couple more jumbo perch with no legal walleyes. It was still fun catching fish out of the trees even though they were too small to keep.
The plan for Sunday morning was to mix it up and try for Bluegills. We had gotten a good report for bluegills at an area lake and found an area that had a lot of fish marks on the graph in the 14 to 20 foot depth. We decided to run crawlers on slow death rigs hoping to maybe catch a walleye or two along with the bluegills. It didn’t take long to start catching fish. I didn’t really have any traditional panfish rods along but soon found that a 7’6″ St.Croix tidemaster MM with a Sealine 17 with a slow death rig also doubles as a good set up for big gills. I just put it in the rod holder and waited it to double over and reeled the fish in. That rig outproduced the rod a held in my hand by a 2 to 1 margin. We ended up with a 2 man limit of very respectable bluegills, as well as many very nice smallmouth bass in the 15 to 19 inch range that were released.
All and all it was a very good fishing trip to NE South Dakota. Although the walleye and perch were relatively slow the overall multi-species action made up for that. We dealt with everything from wind and rain during this trip but were comfortable in Brett’s MX 1825 Skeeter – what a nice rig to fish out of.
If you are looking for a lodging contact in the Webster Area look up Quintin Biermann as he has a sweet deal going for good lodging. Quintin is a great resource for people looking to fish the Glacial Lakes Area. Thanks a lot Quintin!!
