Well I anticipated the trip to SD to fish some new waters for about a month. Unfortunately a massive cold front hit the day before arrival. The weather conditions were less than ideal (temps from -10 below up to 15 degrees) and wind shut us down for one day of the trip(30+mph) and there is no such thing as a wind block out there. It was -10 below the morning we left. We based out of Webster….the bunkhouse motel. A nice place!
It was my first time fishing the lakes out there. Stopped at Sportsman’s Cove in Webster to get a non-resident license ($61). It’s interesting that you can get a family license there all on one license, but you get one limit per license. 4 Walleyes, 20 Perch, Crappies and Panfish limits vary dramatically from lake to lake and so do the perch and walleyes actually. Out of state plates are not necessarily welcomed and you would not want to fish on a lake without knowing the exact regulations for that lake and don’t bring fish from one lake on another….the SD Game and Parks officers are not going to give you any slack period. It is also wise to have your gear completely locked up at night!
We hit Waubay lake first (2 walleyes a day limit….slot is 16 to 20 inches to keep/1 in limit over 20 inches, 10 perch per day/20 possesion limit, and 4 lines through the ice, 18 inches of ice). Within 5 minutes of setting up a tip-up I had a 15 inch walleye on a tip-up. Reset and and set up the other tip-up and I get back to my otter and turn around to see the flags both up. Well this went on for about the next 3 hours til 6 pm and the eyes ran an within an inch short of making the slot. Ran from flag to flag and more flags. I guess we iced and released 75 eyes in 3 hours and a few 10-11 inch perch (which we found we couldn’t fish for because we were constantly on tip-up duty/frost bite duty). There were freshwater shrimp or scud filling up the holes as they are a primary forage.
2nd day we fished a dirty stained lake that was just at the end of a road literally….the pavement ended and the lake began and the ice was in terrible condition. It was a dirty stained water lake and we fished it into the daytime, but only caught a few respectable walleyes there and some pike, perch, and crappie. Blown out for the afternoon so it was spent thawing and re-rigged equipment.
Day three started on a dirty stained lake that was a slow in the morning. Went to Waubay in the afternoon. Got set up in a new location closer to a 15 foot break than the previous time and we had the place to ourselves….no one within a mile of us (weekday). One guy caught a perch and called over 2-way that perch were moving in. I let the flags fly and limited out on 10 to 13 inch perch…quickly! I didn’t know where the perch bite was for sure but I was told that you had an hour to get on them and then it was over. We also iced 2 or 3 pike that were 35 to 37 inch beasts on tip-ups. Walleyes also fell victim to jigging spoons and jigs with bait. At one point I iced 3 15″ walleyes in 90 seconds in my otter and had a 4th on the tip-up. All bait dead or alive produce walleyes. Chubs from 4 inches to over 8 inches produced even walleyes that were only 12-15 inches. The next morning it was back to that location to try to work up some more perch and bigger walleyes.
With the temp. of -10 and wind blowing the flags kept tripping if you could stand to go out and set them up, but there were definetly less tip-ups out due to the fact that you got frost bite on every flag. We tried to sit out the perch and got some nice ones, but the clock ran out and the cold temps. were brutal. Final tallies were at least 200 walleyes released, 10 pike released, and kept 1 crappie and 75 perch between 10 and 11 inches. I haven’t felt the tips of some of my fingers now for 10 days, but I just can’t resist fishing with those tip-ups and those perch were fat.
Hopefully I’ll be able to do some further investigating on some other lakes I worked some info about out of the locals. Some of the lakes don’t even have names and some have a daily limit of one fish be it one perch or one walleye. It’s different and one of the few places that you can actually jig right down the road…gravel or paved! TGIF
