The Final Finale



Back at it again, the weather was the best I have ever had in South Dakota and especially the Pierre Region.  Wind from the northwest and with the lake running north and south, it provided an excellent way to manage the boat and keep it in the deeper water.  If you moved into the shore, your lure will pick up a lot of weeds and most of your time will be spent taking weed off the hooks.

That is the average size we caught.  Picture about 100 fish a head shorter and that was what it was like for two days.

We took our time getting going in the morning and headed back to the lake.  Back to the spot from yesterday, the question was asked "would our success be repeated again with the Flicker Shad?"  The next question we asked was "are the fish still in the same general location?"

Bruce on the tiller.

It did not take long and the answer was yes to both of the above.  We started off quickly with a nice walleye and the same process was repeated again.  We would catch 5 small fish for every one we would keep.  We also had to extend our area out to about 100 yards that we would work in.  The fish were more scattered. Size was right where it was yesterday which meant we would have a great time catching and pitching fish.

How much better can it get.

The wind stayed constant and a low overcast that looked like rain would move in and the temperature dropped a little.  Still the fishing stayed good.  Regardless of the weather when you are catching fish, it does not make a bit of difference what is going on around you.

Before noon, we were done and cleaned up the catch for the morning.  The plan was to bag up the fish and both of us head for home.

FoodSaver GameSaver Deluxe Vacuum Packaging System by Tilia 

Besides more Flicker Shad, this was the first piece of equipment I bought from Bass Pro plus some extra bags.  I am storing all my game this way now.  Click on the picture or the link above for more information.

Going home with a limit of walleye plus all the other fish we caught over a two day period just put frosting on the cake for the trip.  Here was two old men that have not seen each other in over 40 years getting together to visit, talk about life and re-kindle an old friendship.  That was the best part of the trip.

 

 Good fishing, good hunting, and good luck.  Hank
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Outstanding Success



Whenever I fish, I hit it really early in hopes of great success.  The plain fact is that it does not always happen.  Bruce on the other hand likes a more leisurely pace.  A nice breakfast, that sounded great, and a slow pace to the lake.  That was fine with me. 

The first place we went was Carl's Bait Shop and talked with Deputy Dan.  He had no knowledge of the lake we were going to fish. We did buy some live bait as a backup to the plan in case the Flicker Shad proved to be a bad idea.  Next stop was a farm/hardware/clothing/ranch store by the name of Runnings.  This store had everything and the biggest supply of fishing tackle I have ever seen.  We were overwelhmed at first, but the clerks were most helpful and steered us right to a big supply of Flicker Shad lures.

Berkley Flicker Shad Crankbaits

We fished the Blue Tiger.  There is a really big selection of colors to pick from.  We fished the two inch size.

The lake is Farm Hill Lake and is just four miles south of Pierre.  Formed by an arm off the river the lake has an outstanding boat ramp, campground, and best of all a fish cleaning station.  The station has lights if you are cleaning fish at night, and now listen to this, you push the guts and cleanings into an electric grinder at the table and it is all ground up.  Hose it down, take your filets and you are done.  It can't get any better than that. 

South Dakota has supplied an excellent fish cleaning station that has lights for night cleaning.  You push the cleanings into the center of the station and wash them down into a grinder.  This is really nice.  If you are a camper there is an excellent campground.

The lake is divided into two sections.  To the north is a no gas motors allowed section that we did not fish.  The reason was the southern part of the lake has the most acreage and the southern most end is an opening to the river.  The lake is only about 8 to 10 feet deep and there was a lot of vegetation on the bottom close to the banks.  We started trolling with the Flicker Shad in about 6 to 7 feet of water along the west bank and headed south.

The weather changed from bright and sunny to overcast with a southerly breeze.  Just enough wind to put waves on the lake and still allow for good boat management.  A little wave on the water is good when you are after walleye.  We worked the shoreline for about an hour and as we got closer to the south end of the lake we picked up some really nice size white bass.  I will take white bass all day long.  They put a good scrap and once you remove the red meat, the fish is excellent eating.

Bruce with a really nice White Bass.

Moving back north along the lake we took our first walleye.  A fifteen inch minimum is required and he or she, did not make it and was pitched.  We continued to move north, but took the boat out a little deeper to about the 7 to 8 feet of depth.  We started picking them up and found an area where the walleye were stacked or so we said.  We were able to troll and consistently pick up a fish each of us every ten minutes or so.  We stayed in the area S turning the boat out to the deeper water and coming back in always moving slightly north or south.  The area got smaller and was about 50 yards in length.  We would catch 5 small fish to every legal fish above fifteen inches.  In a couple of cases we caught some really nice size walleye up to 18 inches in length.  Most of the fish were in the fourteen inch range and were thrown back.

Excellent boat ramp. 

We never stopped picking up white bass.  The weather changed again, and the walleye shut off as the wind moved more southeasterly, but the white bass were plentiful.  A nice size crappie was ocassionally picked up along with a small northern.  That lake has it all.

Finally by midafternoon, we picked up our last legal walleye to bring to total to 8 fish for the two of us.  South Dakota has a limit of four per day.  If you are fishing the big Oahe Reservoir the limit is 8 per day per person with four above 15 inches and four below 15 inches.  A fourteen inch walleye is hardly worth the effort to filet it out and you do not get a lot of meat.  I feel it is better to turn them loose.

This is a really successful day.  I have no idea how many walleye we caught in total and when you add in the white bass, crappie and a couple of northern, the day was outstanding.  The Flicker Shad did its job and we will be back the next day.

I would recommend you take a good pair of needle nose pliers with you or your favorite device to take out hooks because the little barbed hooks on the lures present a lot of frustration when getting the hook out of the net or the fish.  They are snotty little devils.

 

 

 Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck. Hank
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Walleye Central, Here I Come



Pierre, South Dakota is not only the capital of this beautiful state but it has what is considered the premier lake in a chain of lakes that make up the Great Lakes of central South Dakota.

Oahe Dam forms Lake Oahe that extends from Pierre, South Dakota all the way to Bismark, North Dakota.  The lake covers more than 370,000 acres with a depth of up to 205 feet.  The lake is 231 miles long. With a shoreline of up to 2,250 miles, this allows for some of the best fishing habitat in the country. The lake is named for the Oahe Indian Mission.

Besides excellent population of northern pike, walleye, smallmouth bass, and channel catfish, the state of South Dakota has stocked the reservoir with chinook salmon.  This is a really popular fishing to experience right in the middle of the country.

During college I used to hunt and fish with an avid outdoorsman and while we talked periodically, it has been over 40+ years since we had gotten together to wet a line.  During a conversation, we both decided it was time that we got together now that the iron in our blood has turned to lead in our backside.  In other words, we have both gotten old, or as we now like to call it, mature.

My friend Bruce has many years of fishing Oahe for walleye and salmon, plus he has fished the river below the dam with great success.  He has the technique and know how to boat fish below the dam on the river. 

The plains of South Dakota

The drive up was outstanding.  I had never seen central South Dakota so green. The prairie was picturesque with the deep blue sky and the white fluffy clouds.  Scattered among the various grasslands were herds of grazing cattle.  This scene was what the native Americans experienced centuries ago when they hunted buffalo.

I have never seen the open prairie so green.



Pierre has a lot of motels and excellent ones that cater to the hunter and fishermen. Bruce had set up a really good place to stay.  I checked in and headed to the river to try some luck before Bruce got there.  He said, "By the time I arrive, you will have caught your limit of walleye."  That brought on a lot of excitement.

In a bay off the river South Dakota has established an excellent campground and boat ramp.  You can see the access to the river with a boat on its way out to the river.  That is my boat tied up.

Heading into the river was a new experience for me and I was very nervous about it.  Bruce had cautioned me about some bars just under the surface that might be a problem.  After the spot was found, I wanted to begin hauling the walleye into the boat.  This consisted of holding a position down stream from a wing dam just out of the current and keeping the boat in that vicinity.  The fish would lay off the current, and move out to grab something when it floated by.  This spot was worked for about an hour with not one hit.  I should mention that a red and white jig head was used with a crawler.

A view of the river looking down stream.  The water was crystal clear, and you could see several feet down.

My phone rang.  It was Bruce.  He was at the boat ramp and wanted to know if I was limited out.  The truth sometimes hurts, but there was great optimism in our conversation.  I ran back and picked up my old friend.  We immediately got down to business.  The business was catching fish and as fast and furious as we could catch them. We would sling the baloney later that evening and catch up on our lives.

The helm was immediately turned over to the expert and we were on our way to slam walleye.

We went back to the spot where I had fished and worked it for about an hour.  Then moved off into an arm of the river and worked the bank out to eighteen feet of water.  Not one hit.  Both graphs showed fish from five to ten feet with nothing on the bottom that we could make out.  Worms, leeches, jigs and spinners were being used and the only thing we did not do was throw the tackle box overboard. 

We then moved up close to where the water was being discharged from the dam.  It is at this location where a hydro-electric plant is located.  Water is being taken from the bottom of the reservoir to run the turbines that make electricity.  I was told that scuba divers had seen a lot of fish in this location in the past, but we caught nothing.

Water flows from the bottom of the dam through the generators and into the river.  The big fish wait for bait to wash down to them. 



We gave it up for the day.  Visiting with other fishermen coming off the river, no one was having any luck.  A front had come through the day before and it had been really windy in the morning.  Then in the early afternoon the weather stabilized. 

At the motel we met two old dogs like ourselves.  They had limited out in a day and a half.  In fact, they had spent the afternoon catching and throwing back.  We were interested.  They had been fishing a new plug called a Flicker Shad in blue tiger and trolled at about 2.5 to 2.7 mph.  The plug would go down to about 7 -10 feet depending on how fast you pulled and it was right in the feeding zone. 

The best part, they had been fishing a lake that formed an arm off the river with an excellent boat ramp and a fish cleaning station.  As the old saying goes, "If it is too good to be true, it is."

Next morning were were at a farm and hardware store and saw one of the biggest display of fishing lures and equipment I had ever seen.  The clerks were very helpful and fixed us up with an assortment of colors.

Next week learn what happens. 

Click on a banner for great pricing.  The sales never end.

Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck.  Hank

 

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