Sakakawea - July 24
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
The bite is as hot as I've seen in a couple years right now, and the bread-and-butter, 18-20 inchers are back in full force! If that's all you need to know, go fish (or book a trip)! If you'd like the details, by all means, continue reading.
The big concerns going into the year were the low water levels, the smaller average size of walleyes, and the difficulty getting them to bite. Those concerns are (mostly) alleviated, and I'll explain.
Yes, water levels at 1828 elevation are the lowest we've seen since 2005 when it hit a record of 1806. We did touch a little lower in the spring three years ago, but that time by May it was well on its way back up, so it wound up being mostly forgotten. So is it a problem this year? For access, somewhat. There are still ramps unusable, and some popular ramps are very busy, but it's not even close to a catastrophe. Does it affect fishing? Yes, but actually in a good way. The fish are inevitably more concentrated thus much easier to find. If we had low water for three or five more years, eventually we'd start to loose the smelt due to poor spawns and low survival due to a lack of cold water habitat. But for now, it's only making things better.
Yes, last year we had a ton of 15-inch walleyes in our bag limits. That's fine many places, but people come to Sakakawea for something special, a bigger average size and the chance at a few tournament-class fish. Well, as predicted, those 15 inchers are now about 18, and there are tons of them, especially out in the main lake. The large bays like Deepwater and the Far East End did have a lot of 15 inchers again, but that's a new year-class of fish. For whatever reason, the main lake has attracted the 18-20s, so once that bite got going, they started showing themselves in full force. If you get into a hot bite on the main lake right now, you can possibly sort your way to a limit of 18 plus, and we haven't seen that in a couple years out here.
Yes, the bite last year was "relatively" tough for Sakakawea. The fish were very stingy, likely due to a slow warm-up in June and lots of smelt keeping fish full. We did have a pretty cold June here again, but this time it didn't follow a hot spring. Last year was basically an inverted progression, whereas this year we had a classic - albeit slow to develop - seasonal pattern. We had our hot shallow bite in 3-5 feet of water. We had a long period of 5-10 feet. We now have a strong mid-range bite in 12-18 feet and an emerging deep bite of smelt chasers in 20-30. And ever since we got the first heat wave a few weeks ago, the bite when you find the fish has been off the charts.
We had several days the last two weeks where we caught 50-100 fish in two or three hours in the morning. Now I know, it's not happening everywhere, but when you find large schools of fish - and I'm talking medium to large spots where you see 50 on side imaging constantly - you can absolutely smash them most days. They're not hesitating. Bottom bouncers are best, but some jigging and casting methods are working as well. When I'm not trolling, though, I've tended towards finesse methods like jigs and crawlers vs aggressive fishing like jigging raps. They're not quite that into the chase this season, and they really haven't been for almost three years now. That could change in the near future, but that's been my gameplan so far.
The upper and mid sections are fully into summer temps and patterns, but the lower end still has some cold water, thus finding warmer water can still make a little difference, especially if you have a strong wind blowing the same direction for a couple days. For example, the north shore by Douglas a couple days ago was down to 63 degrees while the south shore was over 70. But we're getting close to the point where that doesn't matter. Wind-blown stuff is always helpful, but water temp is becoming less so.
The one chink in the armor this year has been a tougher bite on the really big fish, those 25+ inchers. Normally in routine guide trips we run into more of that class, but it's not happening at the rate we're used to. I also think tournament-style fisherman are struggling more than usual to find the bigs. But as far as guiding, I see that as a nice bonus, not a requirement. Having 18-20s is way more important to most folks than eight pounders. I haven't targeted large fish much in my free time this year, so I'm not sure if they are harder to find or harder to trigger, but that game is a little slower than it has been. That said, I think we caught more large fish in August last year than we did in June and July, so perhaps the best is yet to come.
I still have some openings for August if anyone wants to put something on the calendar, and with that, I will leave you with the traditional closing videos. Also, if you want more frequent and in-depth fishing reports (average three times per week), consider subscribing over on Patreon.
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