South Dakota Sloughs

Hi everyone, I’m new to this forum. Years ago I was active on a different forum until I believed it was doing more harm than good. Unfortunately it appears other social media has kind of taken over that problem. For that reason, I ask that answers to my question not be too specific, and ideally PM me. I’m more than willing to share what I know in return.

I moved to Aberdeen last March, although I’ve been hunting and fishing NE SD for a number of years. I had one great year fishing the more well known lakes of Day county, and did fairly well on the few larger local lakes of Brown county this summer. What I am wondering about is the numerous larger sloughs throughout the state, not just Brown county. I’ve duck hunted a few of them now, and they aren’t terribly deep, but I’ve seen fish in them. This is where I would not like a well detailed fishing report, but as a general rule, do these larger, say 300+ acre sloughs of what is likely less than 6′ maximum depth, do they hold fish worth going after? I am from Minnesota, and sloughs like this are not that common, although the few I know of generally are just a bunch of bullhead and carp. The ones that hold fish have DNR boat launches on.

I have a handful of sloughs like this in mind, but a little more specifically, I’m wondering about Sand lake on the refuge. Again, I don’t want fishing reports, and being part of the James River, I know it has fish all winter. What I want to know about Sand Lake is, is there any dangers on the ice, and what is the general profile of the lake? I shore fished it in summer, but that doesn’t say much. Is it just a 6′ deep bowl like most others? Is the moving water a concern on the ice? Obviously don’t mess around at the dam, but is there a river channel that I should avoid?

Thanks for any input.

Those large and shallow sloughs are often boom or bust fisheries.

The bust…due to their lack of deeper water extreme winter kill is common when you get a long winter with a lot of snowfall. Not all the fish will die but most of the larger fish will get hit really hard and what’s left is low densities of smaller fish, often perch that, under the right conditions, can rebound quickly.

The boom…if you get three or four mild winters in a row, or if there’s consistent current delivering oxygenated water, those same shallow sloughs can explode and provide some incredible fishing.

My take on it is those shallow sloughs are always worth a look if they contain your target species. It doesn’t take long to rip a few lines of holes in the deepest water you can find and know if you’re dealing with a body of water that’s on an upswing or one that’s got nothing but low populations of small fish that managed to survive the last hard winter.

I hope this helps.

Yes, that helps. If at least a good portion of those sloughs boom and bust, they are worth a shot to me. I’m used to central Minnesota, as I’m sure you are well aware, such sloughs there often more or less die out into a carp pond. Once in a while you get a year of good crappie, or maybe one you might find was a rearing pond, etc., but overall they are a lot more bust than boom.

I’ve seen perch mentioned a lot, and I’ve got nothing against them, but I’ve not tried that hard for them in the past. Maybe that will change this year. Mostly I’m after pike, I assume these small waters don’t hold much for walleye, but I’d love to find one that had some catfish in it too. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m not as much of a target fisherman as I once was. If I get a bunch of perch, I’ll perch fish.

Something else to keep in mind with these shallow sloughs/ponds. We are in the worst drought since 1988 this year so they could be even shallower at this point. Some people posted that their favorite duck marshes and ponds were completely dry when they went to look before waterfowl opener.

^This.

There are a few of my favorite early ice sloughs miles off the beaten path on Pool 4 backwaters that are going to be nearly dry when I go check them in a few weeks…or at least considerably lower than what I’ve been used to with all the “high” water in the past decade.

Tim Conroy Jr. wrote:

I’ve seen perch mentioned a lot, and I’ve got nothing against them, but I’ve not tried that hard for them in the past.

The #1 targeted species in the type of slough you mentioned is likely to be perch. Some will have walleye but the vast majority won’t. Those ultra shallow sloughs don’t typically have any spawning habitat for the walleye and because they’re shallow the DNR often won’t stock them.

I’ve never caught a pike worth a rip out of a shallow SD slough. I’m not saying you won’t. I’m sure it happens. Typically if pike are present they’re an absolute nuisance with most of them being an underwhelming 18 – 22 inches long. I’d look elsewhere if decent pike were my target.

I’ve never heard of a catfish in that type of slough. Again, not saying its not possible but I’ve never even heard of someone catching one.

Going north of Mitchell pheasant hunting in the 80’s. I wondered about fishing. Couldn’t find anyone who did, exc farmer we hunted on, ice fished a few times a year on Carthage. Mostly to sit in his shack and get out of the house. My wife and I went to Thompson for a week. 4 trailers at the ramp seemed to be more than I expected. Then realized it was the only public ramp on a 11,000 acre lake. We fished the sloughs and it was unbelievable. Fishing several days without seeing anyone else was the norm. Then Tony Dean outdoors fishing show introduced So. D. fishing to the Mid west. Not accustomed to handling fishing pressure. Limits stayed high. I remember seeing stringer shots with 10 20#+ Northerns. Groups from bars in states to the east would have large groups of guys come fishing. With no limit on perch, they would all have otter sleds with 100s of perch overflowing. For multiple days. Then have big perch frys at the bar. The shallow sloughs were easy to locate fish, and catch most all of them. The DNR always seemed to be a step behind in the limit corrections. That’s also what hurt Devils Lake in ND as the perch capitol. Over fishing perch reduced the population. That by all experts opinion was not possible. Then walleyes took over, and has never quite recovered. Good for walleye guys. But perch fishing has never been the same. When the first flooding happened 30 some years ago. The sloughs were full of structure. By the late 90 fishing was still pretty good. But not worth an 8-hour drive. Kinda lost that remote feeling. Also, my wife didn’t like the wind gauges don’t bother registering anything under 20mph, that’s just a breeze! Most of my info is from several years ago. But that’s what us old guys do! Think the Dakotas are probably still better fishing than a lot of places. Due to lower resident population. And the DNR has come to realize. People will spend money to chase something besides pheasants.

There’s plenty of sloughs with walleyes. The GFP routinely uses GPAs and WPAs as rearing ponds for eyes and perch. Some of the most fun fishing can be 1-2 years after a slough has been removed from rearing pond status.

gim wrote:

Something else to keep in mind with these shallow sloughs/ponds. We are in the worst drought since 1988 this year so they could be even shallower at this point. Some people posted that their favorite duck marshes and ponds were completely dry when they went to look before waterfowl opener.

I don’t know how it is in Crystal, but eastern SD, and most of MN that I’ve seen, this isn’t even close to 1988. Not even ballpark. This isn’t even as bad as 2007. I keep hearing stories about duck marshes and ponds dry. I found a couple of field drainages that held water on high water years (the last 10 years), and they are dry. I have not found a single honest marsh/pond that is completely dry. South Dakota lakes in particular were so incredibly high, they’ve been building up roads. Even this year, there is still an incredible number of roads that are completely underwater. Again, I don’t know how it’s been there, but here, we have got a TON of rain since August. Just last weekend, we must have got 3-4″ of rain. I realize this is too late to help the spawn, but it was not doom and gloom. It surprises me that anyone could compare this to 1988, where in MN, you could drive a truck around the edges of lakes it was so low.

I got off the phone with a DNR officer. First off, apparently there is no ice fishing in the Sand lake refuge at all. It’s only shore fishing from a few select spots. Second, he didn’t give any encouraging advice on a local slough, a real big one too, about 1800 acres. He said on high water years, it will allow enough water to get a bunch of fish in from the river. On years that don’t, it winterkills bad almost every year. No idea on depth of said slough, for all I know it’s only 2′ deep.

I think I’ll keep these limitations in mind. These sloughs are probably going to only be worth fast growing fish, such as perch. Pike need a good 10 years to get any size, so they would probably never make it. I probably won’t dedicate entire weekends to sloughs, but it might be fun to find a close to home water I can have to myself. Perch taste great too, so no problem there. I never could see what was so special about walleye. Luckily I’m within a days trip of lake Oahe, which doesn’t seem to be any secret for giant pike and catfish, although I’ve not heard of much for ice cats out there.

Tim Conroy Jr. wrote:

I don’t know how it is in Crystal, but eastern SD, and most of MN that I’ve seen, this isn’t even close to 1988. Not even ballpark. This isn’t even as bad as 2007. I keep hearing stories about duck marshes and ponds dry. I found a couple of field drainages that held water on high water years (the last 10 years), and they are dry. I have not found a single honest marsh/pond that is completely dry. South Dakota lakes in particular were so incredibly high, they’ve been building up roads. Even this year, there is still an incredible number of roads that are completely underwater. Again, I don’t know how it’s been there, but here, we have got a TON of rain since August. Just last weekend, we must have got 3-4″ of rain.

I have lived here since 1992, so I was not here in 1988. According to people who have lived here in 1988, this was the worst year in terms of drought in Minnesota as a whole since 1988. It was also the second hottest calendar summer (June – August) since 1988 here too. It was completely parched up north with the wildfires and burn bans. People were complaining that they couldn’t get their boats off the lifts on some lakes. For the first time in the history of the Drought Monitor, portions of Minnesota were classified as “extreme” drought, which is the worst classification possible (red on the maps). Some of those areas still exist on the Drought Monitor right now, primarily on the arrowhead and near Upper Red Lake.

Good to hear that at least some areas are coming out of a drought. Obviously you have done some homework in the area of SD you intend to visit and recent rains have helped.

Here is the most recent map. NE South Dakota (which I think is where you are referring to) does not have any drought. Its one of the few areas that do not have any classification of drought.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

In case I didn’t already say, I live in Aberdeen, SD. I’ve done an incredible amount of driving this year though, and in the past 2 months have been through most of eastern SD, ND, and a huge portion of MN. I grew up just south of St. Cloud, and about 3 weeks ago was there to visit the parents. Last weekend I was near Alexandria.

I wasn’t around for 1988 either, dad was, but this is not even ballpark to that year. Maybe in terms of rainfall (or lack of), this may have been a bad year, but I can assure you as far as lake/pond water levels, 2007 was much, much lower. If anything, the lake levels this year in MN have gone back to what normal is longterm. I launched in plenty of lakes south of St. Cloud, it isn’t even remotely a problem at any DNR boat launch. When I was bear hunting, I used my baiting trips for fishing trips. I was in an area far north of Bemidji, and again, water levels were fine.

In talking with someone why lives right by you, it may even be Crystal, it sounds like you guys got missed by a lot of the last few big storms that most of MN and eastern SD got hit with. It hasn’t been consistent, but the storms we have got since mid-late August have dumped an amazing amount of water on the area, to where you can’t even tell anymore that there was a drought this summer. I’ve even seen some flooded fields.

Tim Conroy Jr. wrote:

In talking with someone why lives right by you, it may even be Crystal, it sounds like you guys got missed by a lot of the last few big storms that most of MN and eastern SD got hit with. It hasn’t been consistent, but the storms we have got since mid-late August have dumped an amazing amount of water on the area, to where you can’t even tell anymore that there was a drought this summer. I’ve even seen some flooded fields.

The last 2 months in NE SD have been pretty wet. Luckily it brought back much of the water levels closer to normal. The far western side of the state and the north and eastern side of MN are still really dry…

That’s what I’m trying to say, it isn’t back to normal, it’s way over that. Roads are underwater, launches are underwater. Even the public use area in Waubay is now back underwater. We’ve had a good 8-10 years of extremely wet years, and this drought barely put a dent in that. I picked a lake at random from central MN, and looking at lake water levels since 1932, this year was still 6″ above average for the lake at the lowest, and is certainly higher than that now. A lot of lakes in NE SD need to go down 6 feet to get back to average.

Slough fishing is a different animal as there isn’t any structure to “hold fish” per say. IMO your best bet is to sit and wait for schools of fish to roll thru instead of drilling a ton.

We have been in a drought this year in NESD, but that being said, the 3 years before that we had record flooding….it has helped a lot of lakes & sloughs with water levels.

Good luck finding & fishing sloughs….hope you find a little gold mine, and if you do, keep it to yourself so the masses don’t pressure the lake.

Tornadoe Chaser is spot on !!

I’ll keep it in mind. Most of the sloughs I see on state owned land are rather small. I’m sure they don’t have to be big to be effective rearing ponds, but I’m guessing they need to be at least 6′ deep to not summerkill. The ones I’ve hunted have all been shallow enough to wade a long ways out. Great for duck hunting through. There are a couple I have in mind surrounded by state land, and without a real boat launch, but they are known lakes, and I’m guessing aren’t secrets.

Does the SD GFP say which ones are rearing ponds, or do you find out 5 years after the fact? Honestly I’d much rather haul in some bull size perch like the ones you guys have pictured. Especially you SoDak Fisher Guy. Either you have tiny hands, or that thing is a monster. I’d swear it was a smallmouth bass if not for the stripes.

Tim Conroy Jr. wrote:

Does the SD GFP say which ones are rearing ponds, or do you find out 5 years after the fact?

You can find out fairly easy. I’m not going to make it any easier though on a public post.

That being said, just pick some publicly accessible bodies of water and give em a shot. Everybody’s definition of “slough” is different. many sloughs in SD would be named lakes with development on them if they were in MN. a 10 acre duck slough probably isn’t worth your time. Unfortunately, like that guy with tiny hands holding that 11″ perch in his profile pic pointed out , word gets out really fast on those small water bites, and the herd comes a thunderin and kills the bite with the constant drilling & ATV/vehicle traffic. We fished a bite last fall that was very close to a large town, and went so far as to literally hide our fish because there was a lot of people trying to stop and ask how we were doing. All it takes is for somebody to drive past you and see your shack/vehicle on a water body two days in a row, and they will assume you’re catching fish and start poking around too.

It’s true. Sometimes I wish there were lakes where trucks, wheelers, snowmobiles, etc. aren’t allowed. Things would be so much better if there were lakes that were foot traffic only. Unfortunately that’s the way things are. Unless you do a BWCA snowshoe trip, there’s going to be people. What I don’t get is that in summer, people reasonably spread out. If you are fishing a spot, normally someone wont come within 100 yards of you unless you are fishing a spring bite in a creek or something like that. In the winter though, it seems all bets are off. Last year I fished a lake in south central MN on a whim, never been there before. There was a huge town of wheelhouses, so naturally I went to the opposite side of the lake half a mile away or more. I ended up slaughtering crappie and perch, and even got a catfish to boot. All on nothing but a ripping rap, it was one of those rare magic days. So of course I came back the next day similar time, and wouldn’t you know, about 5 other trucks were at the launch, and we all proceeded to go to the far end of the lake and set up on the spot. Finally I had to ask the closest guy why he was there. He said he heard they were biting good over here. I never got a clear answer on who from. The day before, I did not see a single hole drilled in the area, and I talked to nobody. Someone had obviously been watching me with binoculars, or came by later and saw some blood or something at the hole.

That’s what’s really worrying about SD. I could walk in a mile to some backwater on a GPA, but anybody on the road over a mile away with binoculars can see everything I do. There’s nothing I can do about it, but be the first one there. We are talking boom and bust sloughs anyway, so if they are fished out, who cares, they were going to die anyway.

Tim Conroy Jr. wrote:

What I don’t get is that in summer, people reasonably spread out. If you are fishing a spot, normally someone wont come within 100 yards of you unless you are fishing a spring bite in a creek or something like that. In the winter though, it seems all bets are off. Last year I fished a lake in south central MN on a whim, never been there before. There was a huge town of wheelhouses, so naturally I went to the opposite side of the lake half a mile away or more. I ended up slaughtering crappie and perch, and even got a catfish to boot. All on nothing but a ripping rap, it was one of those rare magic days. So of course I came back the next day similar time, and wouldn’t you know, about 5 other trucks were at the launch, and we all proceeded to go to the far end of the lake and set up on the spot.

Tom there is another recent thread “what you hate the most about ice fishing” and by far one of the top answers is other people (and trash). Sounds like your experience is no different.

It isn’t that I don’t like other people, but I don’t understand the compulsive behavior to create towns on the ice. It’s as though people go to a lake, look at a group, and go there. For what reason I can’t even imagine. I’ve fished in these groups before, and I can’t recall a single time in my life where I ever caught any decent fish. I’m pretty well convinced that when you get 25+ people in a group, the fish are scared from the area. I’ve got no problem at all with others coming over and chatting. It’s when 5 guys come from across the lake to fish within 100 yards of me, usually never saying a word to me that I don’t like. It is a phenomenon unique to ice fishing. I do understand completely when I’m fishing a well known producing spot, or when there’s already a ton of holes, but when you are on a virgin section of a lake, no holes, and all you are doing is looking for fish, what are those other guys doing? I simply can not understand what drives a person to flock to others, that they don’t get when they are in a boat.