Fishing Forum

I spent the last week visiting family in North Dakota and Wisconsin. "Visiting family" here just means we went fishing every day. The first couple of days in North Dakota we fished small-ish, shallow prairie lakes for walleye and northerns, as well as the occasional wiper. I find walleye fishing challenging. Mostly we trolled flicker shads and worm harnesses. It had been a long time since I'd caught fish on crankbaits, and I had mostly forgotten that there are times when they're an effective way to fish. I also fished large soft plastic swimbaits for the northerns--large sebile swimmers and shadalicious.

Then we went to Northern Wisconsin, where we fished primarily for muskies, but also for bass on ponds with kayaks. It is amazing that you can be on heavily pressured waters, and then drive a few minutes to a pond where you have to pull your kayak in only 100 yards or so, and it is like you've gone back in time. The bass will hit a popper like they fully expect it to be a dragonfly. There are some ponds that have both largemouths and smallmouths, which is fun. And it is nice that you can comfortably fish the entire body of water in a kayak or float tube.

You'll notice there are no pictures here of muskies. My mom (a wisconsin native and avid muskie angler) hooked into a large fish, but it shook its head on the surface mid-way through the fight and threw the bucktail. I had another follow my topwater plug for literally 20+ yards, but I could never get it to commit. I might try pineview (maybe in the fall?) again, but otherwise it's going to have to wait till next year.

Hope everyone had a happy 4th!
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Sounds like a cool trip! Defiantly all my favorite species to fish for.

Thanks for sharing!

fnf[cool]
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Thanks for a great fishing report -- took me back to my "youth" growing up and fishing in my home state of Wis...there we fished central and northern Wis., but not enough of the northern part.......and you spent time in another "favorite" state, Nodak.....I've been luck enough to have made several great hunting trips near Lake Sacagawea, but have never fished it...and my dream fishing trip would be ice fishing Devil's Lake....now you got me day dreamin'.....tks, and Guluk...
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We spent a day on Devil's Lake. It wasn't nearly enough time to get to know such an expansive system of water, but we had a good time (we were lucky to go with family who knew the water). An interesting thing was that when you hooked a fish, you didn't immediately know if it was a northern, a walleye, or a white bass. We didn't connect with any of the giant walleyes, but apparently there are some big ones in there. My sister caught a huge white bass--among the biggest I've seen. If I did it again I would really concentrate on the white bass fishing. You should definitely make a trip out sometime!
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It's on my bucket list, but I'd still like to do it thru the ice, hunting for the perch....and I love that drive thru the whole state, West to East, on into Minnesota....eye candy for us Prairie Pothole observers....
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