Lake Oahe – Mobridge, South Dakota Walleye Report

“The walleye bite is the best it has ever been on Lake Oahe this year.” These are the words that I heard several times on my recent trips to Mobridge, South Dakota. I’ve had the opportunity to make 2 trips and spend 13 days on the water at Lake Oahe in the last 3 weeks. The fishing was incredible and I truly can’t imagine that the fishing could get any better.

On the first trip to Mobridge I headed up to fish the Professional Walleye Trail Regional event as a Co-angler. Gene and Jake Brueggemann, also from Nebraska made the trip with me. The three of us headed up on May 25th with plans to pre-fish with a couple of pros on Monday and Tuesday before the tournament started. I was lucky enough to spend one day with Devil’s Lake Pro Jonnie Candle and the next day with Mille Lacs expert Bruce “Doc” Sampson. What a great couple of days those were. We caught some really decent fish while trolling and I was hoping to get to fish with one of them during the tournament as they were on some decent fish.

On Tuesday night we attended the tournament meeting to get a run down of the rules and then find out which pros we would be fishing with. When my name was called I found out that I was fishing with Lake Oahe legend Mike McClelland on day one. Mike hadn’t fished a PWT event in several years and this was his “coming out of retirement” tournament. My day 2 pro was Gary Maher from Menoken, North Dakota. Gary had spent a lot of years fishing Lake Oahe and had done very well in several tournaments out of Mobridge. My day 3 partner was none other than the 2007 Angler of the Year, Gary Parsons. I really felt honored to have drawn such great pros.

On day 1 of the tournament Mike McClelland and I used bottom bouncers with a few different baits. The set ups consisted of a 4 ft snell with a hook on small bottom bouncers. On one rod I ran a crawler and on the other a large fat head minnow. Mike ran 1 small creek chub around 2 inches long and on his other rod a larger creek chub over 4 inches long. We boated some really decent fish and decided to keep a couple of perfect 19.5 inch slot fish early in the day. We soon followed with a nice 22.5 inch eye that would be put in the live well to count as one of our 2 fish we were allowed to take to the scales that were over the 22 inch slot limit. It wasn’t much later that we caught a 22 inch fish that Mike had me release. He really thought that we could get one larger. With less than an hour to go Mike finally connected with a very nice 27.5 inch eye. We headed to the scales and finished the day in second place with 17.76 lbs.

Day 2 with Gary Maher took us on a long boat ride South past the Swan Creek area near Akaska. Gary had been on some real decent fish during practice but the fish were not as abundant in this area. He told me that we wouldn’t catch a lot of numbers but the fish should be decent in size. We contour trolled lead core with several different baits bringing fish to the boat. Our efforts were focused on 14 FOW. We caught some really decent slot fish but we really struggled to find 2 over 20 that would move us forward in the standings.

Fishing with the legendary Gary Parsons on day 3 was quite an honor. As a Bass Pro Shops Pro Staffer I knew I would be using equipment and techniques I was familiar with. We headed South 27 miles to an area that had been holding some decent fish. Gary and his team mates Keith Kavajecz and son Chase Parsons had been catching some large fish out of this area. They just couldn’t get the fish to come in the right order. This is one of the toughest aspects of tournament fishing on a body of water where you are not allowed to cull. Chase had caught a 10 lb eye on day 2 only to return it because he had his 2 fish over 20 inches in the live well. Fortunately for Gary and me, we never had to face a decision like that. We trolled lead core in 28 FOW using Flicker Shads. With the help of a Motor Guide PTSv trolling motor we were able to stay in our target depth on a very steep break line. The fishing was not fast and furious and after the day was half over we found ourselves in need of a couple more fish to take to the scales. Our second spot of the day had us switching tactics. We switched to the Slow Death technique. Our efforts were focused on a main lake point where the wind had been blowing into the area all day. We caught several fish in this area as we were sorting through them trying to upgrade some smaller fish we had in the live well. We soon caught what we were looking for and Gary wanted to hit one more spot on the way in to the scales. We had room for one more fish in the livewell and Gary had a hunch where we could find the perfect fish. We stopped about 8 miles from the boat ramp on a deep flat that was stacked with fish. We went back to the lead core and within minutes Gary’s hunch came to the boat. It was a fat 19.5 inch fish that would upgrade a 17.5 incher we had in the livewell. We ended the day with 13.9 lbs. This was Gary’s best day of the tournament and it helped me to finish in 5th place in the Co-Angler field.

I had a great experience fishing this tournament. It was my first trip to Lake Oahe and was a great way to help me prepare for the Cabela’s National Team Championship that was held on June 13th and 14th. If you like tournament fishing and want to know what it’s like to fish like a pro then get yourself signed up for a Pro Am event like the PWT or the FLW. I’ve met some great fishermen and hope to be competing against them at the Pro level soon.

Stay tuned to In-DepthOutdoors.com for my follow up report on the NTC tournament.