Webster area

In the past I have E-mailed with and spoken to differnct members of IDO in trying to determine a good fishing area in SD. Through my research, I thought we should try the Webster area. My wife and I went up to Webster to fish for both walleye & perch last week. We had never fished here before. Actually last winter I had secured a local guide for ice fishing. Due to a late season blizzard,we never made it. From this cancellation we chose late October to give it a try. I felt since we had never fished here before that spending a couple of days with a guide should be very beneficial. The plan was to fish last Thursday and Friday. Thursday was a very good weather day on the water. We fished Bitter Lake. The walleye bite was great, however most were under the 15 inch minimum. We caught lots of fish. According to the guide, baitshop, and other fishermen the perch bite was very slow. We did try perch for a while with no luck due to the forecast for Friday being very wet. We ended the day with our limit of walleyes. All good eaters. We decided to to see what tomorrows weather brings.

Got up Friday morning and spoke with the guide. Due to the weather he cancelled the trip. Seemed like a logical choice. It would have been pretty miserable at times. Definitely seems like an interesting area to fish. We still want to try and catch some of the perch that we hear about. We just need to figure out when we want to go back.

not sure if it’s 100% in stone, but the slot on Bitter might be loosening up January 1st. We had some 14 1/2 fish which we couldn’t believe were under 15 as they were fat and chunky. Going to be giving some of the sloughs/lakes a shot for perch just to the south. One needs to put some miles and time in just to learn where some of those lakes are located. Hope to gain a bit more knowledge each trip.

The no length limit goes in effect jan 1

It’s going to be a zoo up there

We fished Bitter for one day the first week of October, lots of short eyes and no Perch, although it was windy and tough to hold on a spot for Perch. The next two days we fished Lynn and Waubay with good success on Eyes and Perch with a few bonus Gills.

icenutz wrote:

The next two days we fished Lynn and Waubay with good success on Eyes and Perch with a few bonus Gills.

Just curious where the gills came out of? I know that Waubay was kicking out some big bulls this ice season but not numbers.

We had heard some conversation on lowering the length on Bitter. Any official explanantion as to why and how long it will be in effect?

Sounded like they believe there are plenty of fish and it doesn’t need to be restricted, don’t think they plan on putting one back on, I would imagine it all has to do with test nets.

There’s a year class of walleye which had a huge successful hatch. This class should be in the 17 inch range, but they are all over the place between 14 1/2 to 16. There’s not enough forage for them and the upcoming classes. I believe that the perch could crash, or the YOY perch are crashing. At any rate, there’s still huge perch in Bitter, just not as many as prior years. If you find a pod of perch they will put a bend in your pole. The smaller walleye look very healthy, there’s plenty of breeders, just hope that the resource doesn’t get raped.