Destination Devils Lake
This vast North Dakota prairie lake serves up a unique brand of fishing for a great population of chunky walleyes.
It might not seem like you’re walleye fishing as you cast Lindy Jigs or Shadlings toward cattails and work them over shallow flats. If you cast toward the right banks, though, it won’t take long for the fish to confirm that you are indeed walleye fishing.
A huge prairie-country lake, North Dakota’s Devils Lake supports an outstanding population of chunky walleyes. Early in the season, the fish hold tight to cattails and cruise over beds of cabbage that are just beginning to grow up from the bottom. The lake’s shallow edges warm quicker than other waters with the first sunny days of spring, and the combination of added warmth and quality cover attracts assorted baitfish and in turn walleyes.
Shallow and aggressive walleyes provide an ideal scenario for casting lures to visible targets. Big numbers of fish holding close to largely open banks also create outstanding opportunities for shoreline anglers, making Devils Lake an extremely popular bank-fishing destination. From late spring through the end of summer, anglers line the most accessible sections of this big lake.
Devils Lake is officially listed at 145,000 acres, with 450 miles of shoreline; however, its true size is tough to quantify. The lake’s actual size has fluctuated over the years, based in large part on regional rainfall patterns, but in recent years it has been steadily growing. The continued growth has been the product of multiple factors. Beyond the short answer of “lots of rain,” the lake continues to grow because of irrigation changes that leave more of the region’s water draining into Devils Lake.
The lake’s ongoing growth is a serious concern, as roads, homes and businesses have been flooded and many others are being threatened with possible future flooding. From a straight fishing standpoint, the higher water level creates an interesting situation because a grid of former roads has turned into great fishing structure, with most flooded roads having hard tops and well defined slopes. Also, when the water rises enough to open new boating access to adjacent basins, those areas often emerge as fishing hotspots.
SPRING FISHING
Jason Feldner, a veteran Devils Lake guide and winner of last year’s FLW Outdoors Walleye Tour event at Devils, loves casting to shallow fish early in the spring. He uses a one-two punch of a Size 5 Lindy Shadling and a Lindy Jig or X-Change Jig matched with a soft-plastic minnow or paddle-tail grub, casting one or the other and cranking it back.
If Feldner has two anglers aboard, he likes to have one throwing a jig and the other a Shadling, at least until the walleyes show a preference for one or the other on that particular day. Feldner will almost always have both baits rigged on his rods, and he’ll mix up his casts as he tries to figure out things.
Feldner is a big advocate of letting the fish dictate their preferences. Either a jig or a crankbait will produce at least some walleyes in the right area, but one will out-produce the other most days, and that might change from one day to the next with no obvious change in conditions. Similarly, the walleyes might want a jig swam slowly but steadily one day and prefer having it hopped along, closer to the bottom and ticking the weeds, another day.
Because of the walleyes’ moody ways, Feldner often will start a day with a Lindy X-Change Jig tied to his jig rod. That allows him to experiment with colors and to change head sizes (which allows for quicker or slower presentations in the same areas) very quickly and helps him hone in a pattern much faster.
T
HE BEST BANKS
Wind concentrates the forage fish and therefore the walleyes, so Feldner virtually always focuses on those sections of bank that are the most wind-beaten. Feldner also prefers stained water, which works out nicely because the wind-beaten banks tend to be the most stained. The stain provides a double benefit because the walleyes become less cautious, and the stained water warms faster than the clear water when the sun is shining.
Feldner tends to cover water quickly until he finds fish, and he always keeps one eye on his temperature gauge as he moves. An increase of even a degree or two in an area often will signal more active fish, so when he finds warmer water he works that area thoroughly.
Along any given section of bank, Feldner gives extra attention to points, cuts in the cattails, high spots or gaps in the cabbage and other distinctive features that create edges. He also looks for changes in the bottom make-up and focuses on the transition points.
BEYOND WALLEYES
Although walleyes are the main attraction for many Devils Lake anglers, casting jigs and crankbaits toward the bank will also produce big numbers of northern pike and white bass. The northerns typically aren’t trophy fish, but they aren’t pesky hammer handles either. They are thick-bodied fish, most of which are in the in the 5- to 10-pound range, that hit lures with gusto.
Huge white bass provide and additional bonus early in the year. Big schools of hefty white bass follow baitfish all over Devils Lake during the spring. Because they are schooling fish, the whites won’t be on every good bank. When you do find them, though, they serve up furious action, sometimes hitting on every cast.
The good news for anglers who simply enjoy catching fish is that the pike and the white bass use the same windblown banks as the walleyes during the first part of the year, and they’ll attack the same Shadlings and Lindy Jigs. While a walleye purist or tournament angler who is fishing against the clock might consider the other fish bothersome, for most fishermen, the combination of walleyes, pike and white bass equates to exceptional fishing action.
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES
Casting cranks and jigs remains Feldner’s primary strategy throughout the spring. However, when the walleyes pile up in coves or around flooded timber, he will pull out his Thill Pro Series Slop Floats and bobber rods to suspend live leeches just off the bottom. For slip bobber fishing, which can be especially good at first light and close to dark, Feldner will anchor just upwind of where he wants baits.
Feldner does more slip-bobber fishing later in the season, and he’ll also pull spinners in a little deeper water through mid summer. He noted, however, that the casting strategy works all summer at Devils Lake. He simply moves the boat deeper as the cabbage grows up from the bottom and eventually turns to working the outside edge of the weeds instead of casting over the top of the vegetation.
Whether Feldner is casting to the bases of the cattails early in the season or working the outside edges of the cabbage a couple of months later, the same Lindy Shadling and Lindy Jigs continue to do the job for Devils Lake walleyes.
WANT TO GO?
To get updated reports about the bite at Devils Lake, visit the Lindy Audio Reports page. To learn more about Jason Feldner and Perch Eyes Guide Service, visit www.percheyes.com. In addition to guide service, Perch Eyes offers lodging, bait and tackle.