This is the right time to book with one of our Lake Oahe fishing guides, the action is really heating up.  The past week we’ve struggled with large numbers of smaller fish, but that’s now beginning to change.  We took the boat out with the sole intention of running crankbaits yesterday and really cleaned up on the walleyes.  I doubt we ever went 10 minutes without a fish hitting one of the lines, with many doubles and even triples going at once.  While we were still catching a lot of small walleyes, we had no problem getting walleyes up to the boat between 17-21 inches.  We also had a lot of pike, white bass, and smallmouth bass in the mix.  We’re moving a lot of our fishing away from Bismarck now and into Lake Oahe.  That doesn’t mean we still don’t have fish going around town, it’s just that time of year where the bigger fish will start moving south and we want to stay on top of the hot bite.

Give us a call if you’d like to get choice dates fishing Lake Oahe!

A nice walleye hitting a crankbait on Lake Oahe.

North Dakota Fishing Guides – Another decent outing on Lake Audubon, but the size of the walleyes are still left to be desired.  For 3.5 hours we had nonstop walleyes cruising underneath the ice house.  Unfortunately, the size continues to diminish.  Jigs tipped with minnows and jigging spoons tipped with minnow heads provided the best results.  The darters just haven’t produced the last few times out like it did 2-3 weeks ago.

We’re heading down to Lake Oahe Sunday, I’m looking forward to some pigs.

North Dakota Fishing Guides – The fishing continues on Lake Audubon.  Our hump that we’ve been fishing almost exclusively has started to cool down so we’re on the move.  We wanted to start fishing more humps around the western end of the lake but a massive pressure ridge stands in our way.  I’ve seen a few go over it but there’s no way I’m taking other anglers out over it.  After scouring my Lowrance HDS-8 (mounted to the ATV) with the latest Lakemaster Chip, we found a spot that looked great on paper.  It was a 17 foot channel that cut one of the big bays from the main lake.  There’s 5 foot humps on each side and this channel was like a bottleneck through it.   After positioning ourselves on the correct spot, we started our fishing.

During the day, this spot was holding a lot of small to mid-size perch.  As the sun started to drop the walleye bite started.  It wasn’t as fast and furious as our other area, but the majority of the walleyes coming through were good size.  My buddy had a tank of a walleye on his line but lost it at the hole.  It’s too bad too as I’m sure it was the largest walleye I’ve seen iced this winter.  To make matters worse, my buddy also lost a tank of a pike that probably would’ve been close to the 40 inch mark.  It managed to immediately wrap around neighboring lines and the Vexilar, that put us in a pinch and had to cut the line.

Good news is the weather continues to be warm and relatively stable.  Today the temps are pushing 40 degrees for the 2nd day in a row.  This weekend it will cool down but will still stay in the mid 20s for a high.  Still beautiful weather conditions for late January in North Dakota.

Stay with us for more Lake Audubon ice fishing guide reports!

The fishing continues to be excellent with the Lake Audubon fishing guide.  We fished Friday night, Saturday morning, and Sunday evening.  We’ve been continuing to fish the same location, a shallow hump between a couple islands with close access to deep water.  The fish hang out underneath for most of the day/night with the only lull coming during the midday.

The vast majority of the fish coming have been walleyes, with a 14 inch average with the keepers coming between 16-20 inches.  Action has been hot on the deadsticks and the darters, and tonight it was jigging with a blue glow jig/minnow.

However, big pike have been moving in as well.

Saturday, I iced a 40-inch pike with a 16 inch girth.  It was a PIG.  It took 40 minutes to get it up the hole, with the pike only coming on 6 lb. test.

Sunday, I iced a pike almost the same size…practically a twin.  It didn’t take quite as long but still put up a 20 minute battle.  This is the 3rd big pike in the last 4 outings to it definitely adds to the action.

Lake Audubon Fishing Guides

My buddy Nate with a nice Lake Audubon Walleye

I got a few tips from a fellow angler on a part of the lake that’s been holding a lot of fish.  We set out with my Lowrance HDS-8 (mounted to my ATV) and found some good humps in an area off some islands.  We fished VERY shallow with the intent to move deeper during the mid-day bite.  To my amazement, there was a great abundance of walleyes and perch holding extremely shallow for most of the day (and of course during low light times).

From the moment we drilled the holes and setup the house, the action was on.  During the day I’m sure we iced at least 70 to 80 walleyes between the 2 of us, if not more.  We stopped counting around 40.  Most of the fish were a bit on the small side, but a good portion of the walleyes were in the 16-20 inch range.  Our largest was around 24 inches, which we let go.

We had great action on both the darters and the deadsticks.  Most of the keepers came on the darters, however.

The ice is deteriorating fast!  With highs in the 50s for the upcoming days it will only get worse.  When we left the ice there was a good couple inches of water on the ice.  Most of the ice houses were pulled off yesterday but there is still a lot remaining.

I will be stepping away from ice fishing until the temperatures get COLD again.  I plan on hitting the boat for some open water walleyes on the Missouri River later this week or weekend.

Check back for more reports from our Lake Audubon fishing guides.

Well I had to end the year the only way I know how…with a flasher and rod in hand.

I hadn’t fished Lake Audubon yet this winter and had heard some good reports.  We had to go out a bit blind without the Lakemaster Chip.    I’m waiting on a part to come in the mail tomorrow which will allow me to use my Lowrance HDS-8 or 10 for mapping on my ATV.  That will seriously be a game changer for me on lakes such as Lake Audubon that has so much structure.  Anyways, back to the report…

Ice was around 12 inches thick – there was a lot of full sized trucks all over the ice.  I like to see 15″ myself so we used my ATV/Zack Shack.  We concentrated on the edge of bays and islands right off the top.  Deadsticks were horrible, the majority of the action came on the Salmo Chubby Darters tipped with a minnow head.  We iced some smaller walleyes, decent perch, a few keeper walleyes, and a couple nice pike.  The largest pike was around 12 pounds (guessing, didn’t weigh).  It was a fun fight on a light rod and 4 lb test.

While it’s supposed to get down to 0 degrees tonight, which is nice for ice conditions…we’re supposed to get up towards 50 degrees by the end of the week.  Great weather for everyone BUT ice anglers up here.

To everyone driving out on the ice, be careful!

Check back for more reports from our Lake Audubon fishing guides.

Fishing has been considerably good this month with the only exceptions coming on extremely calm days.  This day we had just enough wind with it hanging around 10 mph, just enough “walleye chop” to keep the fish active.

I’ve been focusing my time on a dozen humps around the lake starting shallow in the morning and moving deeper as the day progresses.  We had equal luck on jumbo leeches as well as crawlers.  Spinners has been the ticket most days and this day we had a lot of action on plain leaders tipped with crawlers.

We caught a 2-man limit of walleyes ranging from 17 – 22 inches and were done by 10:30 a.m.

Check back for more reports from our Lake Audubon fishing guides.