Devils Lake, info

[Dakota Angler]

I see WoodLand Resort is full until late march. So were thinking of hitting up a local motel. How much snow is out on the lake? Can a 4x4 get around? Thinking of going in early march they did say auger extension is needed and that's not a biggie already have mine on here in SD. Here we have no snow. Thanks for your input

[Eyes R Bitin]

You can still get around pretty well with a 4X4.  Woodland has quite a few trails cleared for access.  They expect you to stop at the bait shop and pay a fee or at least buy bait.  There is access in other spots too so you shouldn't worry about getting on the lake.  I was out on Saturday and bottomed out the Lazer so will be using an extension from now on. 

Reports say it is a great perch year.  I am usually after walleyes and doing pretty good but can't prove the perch quantity by  me. 

its still a while before you come up so keep an eye on the fishing reports to keep up on getting around in a 4X4.  Perch Patrol usually mentions it in their report.  I'd recommend you find a room soon.  GOOD LUCK! 

[scmelik]

DA my buddies and I area heading up this next weekend for 3 days, I will let you know how things are when we get back.  They are going to focus on perch but I will be putting my focus on BIG eyes for two of the three days

[Dakota Angler]

We are set for March 21st through 23rd at Woodland and have perch patrol for a day . Keeping fingers crossed we don't get nailed with a ton of late season snow like we did last year.

[scmelik]

We are set for March 21st through 23rd at Woodland and have perch patrol for a day . Keeping fingers crossed we don't get nailed with a ton of late season snow like we did last year.

bite your tounge!!!  I am a big fan of winter but this one has drug on long enough.  After my devils trip and one last trip to webster with my dad I am ready for it to be over.  Time to break out the golf clubs and the long rods

[swampdonkeyice]

Perch patrol will get you on the fish, the report I got is that you can drive anywhere you want on the lake right now, and an extension is an absolute must.

[moab]

Leaving the 13th for Woodland.  Hoping we get lucky to catch a break with weather too.. 

[PondPerchPounder]

I'm headed up to woodland this weekend! Hoping for some good fishing, I'll report when I get home.

[moab]

Good Luck PPP!  Looks like weather for this weekend will be much better than recent past.  Look forward to your report.

[Bryan in iowa]

Headed up to DL from Cedar Rapids Iowa this am . Woodland was full. Think we are staying at Spirit Lake lodge? in Minniwaukon .  hope to be on the ice thurs am ,. agreed ,weather look much better than the -25 they have had

[SeisMec]

Good luck to you people!

[bmiller423]

We leave Bismarck on Friday morning at 4:00am.  Fish Friday, Saturday and part of Sunday.  Should be a good weekend.  Hope to hit them with the weather turning nice. 

[clmiller]

Just got back from Devils Lake and fished with Woodlands Resort crew the 3rd and 4th and the fishing wasn't good. We caught only 9 fish the first day, with no size to the perch, a lot of the people in other houses didn't catch anything. Hopefully the change in the weather will yield better results.

[Dakota Angler]

Just got back from Devils Lake and fished with Woodlands Resort crew the 3rd and 4th and the fishing wasn't good. We caught only 9 fish the first day, with no size to the perch, a lot of the people in other houses didn't catch anything. Hopefully the change in the weather will yield better results.

Try to hire Perch Patrol for a day. We are doing that our first day so they can show us the ropes. I called them this week and they have limited out on perch by 1pm every day the past 2 weeks. They drill holes and move drill and move until they find them and then once that stops they move again. I know that the weekends they are booked up till end of their season but during the week they had openings. We are going up late Thursday night and have them on Friday for the day then were on our own for SAT and SUN,

[clmiller]

When we arrived Sunday we got to see Perch Patrol's catch in the cleaning house at Woodland Resort, very impressive.

[bmiller423]

We fished Devils Lake this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Ice is very thick and driving is a little rough with snow the snow drifts melting and freezing overnight.  We needed the extensions and you were right up to the bottom of the auger.  Also a spare set of blades wouldn't hurt.  If you are planning on fishing in the next few weeks I would recommend picking up minnows before you get close to the lake as it seemed there are limited quantities.  The resorts had a few but if you are staying at a local hotel and not a resort you may not have a lot of luck. 

We had our best luck this past weekend in shallow water (5-10 ft).  Waxies or minnow heads.  Buckshot rattles, forage minnows or lindy flyers.  Firetiger seemed to be the best.  The only problem with being that shallow are the northern.  We caught probably 30 northerns between 3 and 7 pounds. 

[HuskerSlabMan]

Heading north for my first trip to devils lake this Sunday. Hope everyone has left a few fish for me to catch!

[Dakota Angler]

Heading north for my first trip to devils lake this Sunday. Hope everyone has left a few fish for me to catch!

Give us a report and pics when you return! Good Luck!

[PondPerchPounder]

Here is the report:

Sunday we got out to the ice about 7:00, woodland put us in a shack in about 50 FOW. We fished there until noon and only caught two fish. So we called woodland and they found us a different spot, we fished there from 2 until dark and ended up catching 10 walleyes and 10 perch (8 guys fishing). None of them were to big... the biggest perch was 12.5' and the biggest walleye was 16'. One of the other Woodland guides told us that the first guy had put us in 50 FOW knowing very well that it was bad fishing at that depth. 

Monday morning we fished in that same spot from 8 until noon and we only caught 5 fish again with not much size. Then we decided it was time to make the six hour drive back home.

The people at woodland told us that fishing had not been to hot for them lately, and I was disappointed in the fishing. My final thoughts were that I don't need to travel anywhere other than in my home state of South Dakota to have the best fishing around.

[Dakota Angler]

Sorry to hear this! Devils Lake is a MASSIVE lake but I also saw on Perch Patrols fishing report that this past week was some tough fishing due to weather fronts.

That's what I have been hearing from their facebook page was this very complaint. Those who chose to take their "ice house" package was that they had them in bad spots and then were unwilling to move them. Which isn't what they advertise. We almost were going down that route but when I called they were booked solid up to March 15 and all the perms must be removed. So plan B was to take a day with Perch Patrol (first day) have them show us the lake and how its done then the next 2 days on our own we had a idea.

[PondPerchPounder]

Yeah I'm guessing you will have better luck going with Perch Patrol. I was amazed by the sheer size of the lake! Woodland asked us if we had brought out own shacks and augers, I was surprised by that. They also never asked if we wanted holes for tip ups or just to hole pop around so we ended up fishing some holes outside the shacks that guys had drilled and then left. I won't be making another trip up there anytime soon...

[Dakota Angler]

when I lived there back in the late 80's the trip to devils lake (the town) was only 17 miles now it is 53 miles. The road in which we took and fished from is under FEET of water. If I remember right a little town to the north and west of Devils Lake named Churches Ferry is completely under water. So yeah it is like a mini great lake on a plains state so there is no where for the water to go but spread out. All that flooding has done nothing but make it a GOLD MINE for fishing!

[scmelik]

Yeah I'm guessing you will have better luck going with Perch Patrol. I was amazed by the sheer size of the lake! Woodland asked us if we had brought out own shacks and augers, I was surprised by that. They also never asked if we wanted holes for tip ups or just to hole pop around so we ended up fishing some holes outside the shacks that guys had drilled and then left. I won't be making another trip up there anytime soon...

when we booked we asked them specifically if they would help us out on where to go.  We brought all of our own equipment and didn't rent a shack, but they said that they would tell us where to go and what to use.  When we got there they were tight lipped as hell, didn't want to talk with us at all even though we rented one of their big cabin and ate almost every night at their restaurant.  Thankfully when we go back we won't have to go back to woodlands, we can stay at Camp Grafton for WAY WAY cheaper.

[Dakota Angler]

Sunday, March 16 (Perch Patrol report)

Sorry for the delayed report, things have been crazy busy around here. Perch fishing for guests of the Perch Patrol continue to be "off the charts". Every day we seem to find more and more pe ... rch. Some days they are big schools, some days they are small tight schools, and some days they are fast moving schools that are hard keep up with. It sure is fun when there are so many perch on your screen and they are literally coming out of the six foot auto zoom on the Vexilars. These are good times!

The ice conditions continue to be very good. We did have about 3 days over the 40 degree mark and that did melt most of our snow that we had. We did have a couple of days with quite a bit of water on the ice but the cold front that hit us over the weekend re-froze most of it by now. It is very slippery out there and we would like to tell all of our guests that are coming these last two weeks of March, please bring cleats.

Our ice is still 40 plus inches thick and we are still driving our trucks. Looking at the 10 day forecast, we should be able to keep driving as long as the accesses stay in good shape.

Our schedule for March has been sold out for quite a while now and we have been asked if we are going to continue guiding in April. We so far have not scheduled anything in April and if we decide to do so I will definitely be posting it on our report page and our Facebook page.

We want to see what the forecast is and the ice conditions are in about a week to ten days from now before we schedule anything in April. We also need to judge how much gas our guides have left in the tank as well. This crew has been running hard since December 15th without many days off. We will keep you posted when we make our decision.

[fishon1054]

I am thinking about making a trip to Devil Lake this weekend, I'm retired military and should be able to stay at Camp Grafton?  Any suggestions on where to fish?  Looking for some nice perch.  Any suggestions on what to bring?  I could return the favor for information on Ft Peck....

[Dakota Angler]

I am thinking about making a trip to Devil Lake this weekend, I'm retired military and should be able to stay at Camp Grafton?  Any suggestions on where to fish?  Looking for some nice perch.  Any suggestions on what to bring?  I could return the favor for information on Ft Peck....

Call Perch Patrol and or Ed's bait shop they can give you a little help on where to go. People are tight lipped about this lake and don't give out much info. I understand the purpose in that to a point but on the other hand its not like its a back yard pond here .

I am going this weekend to Devils Lake as well.

[SeisMec]

Call Perch Patrol and or Ed's bait shop they can give you a little help on where to go. People are tight lipped about this lake and don't give out much info. I understand the purpose in that to a point but on the other hand its not like its a back yard pond here .

I am going this weekend to Devils Lake this weekend.

A few years back on a different website someone posted a HONEST fishing report for one of the other lakes in that area. He was call a lot of things worse than a dirty rotten SOB and was threatened with grievous bodily harm by a couple of the locals that frequented that website.

[Dakota Angler]

A few years back on a different website someone posted a HONEST fishing report for one of the other lakes in that area. He was call a lot of things worse than a dirty rotten SOB and was threatened with grievous bodily harm by a couple of the locals that frequented that website.

Oh that wouldn't surprise me at all that people would do that. Rather sad to go and do that I mean it is a public lake and fish move for crying out loud. I never really get hung up on where to go but rather what depth of water is hitting and then look at a map. Also different lakes fish bite on different lures and presentations so I try to gather that info. If I have a little of that info on a new lake the fun part is the "hunt"!!!

[moab]

We got back from DL on Sunday.  We had an ok trip and caught lots of numbers but didn't find alot of the jumbos that has been the talk all year.  I guess being from SD I am kinda spoiled as we see alot of big perch here.  I would guess our average size was the 9-11 inchers and a few each day 13+  but really surprised at the numbers of small perch we found in different areas.  We spent alot of the time in the 30-45fow and really wanted to try shallower but it didnt pan out.   We fished eastern portion of DL and used quads to get around.  Most others were fishing out of pickups and after talking with several other groups they had about the same results as us.  Being our first time there, we spent a good portion of the time exploring different portions of the lake.  What a massive body of water!  It looks big on the map but you really appreciate the size when trying to break it down into smaller fishable pieces.  Would love to spend more than a few days there as only covered a small portion of it.  I think you are smart to use Perch Patrol for the first day as it could considerably narrow down your search.  Good luck this weekend and hope you have a good back..I didn't need an extension on my nils but buried the head several times. 

[Dakota Angler]

We got back from DL on Sunday.  We had an ok trip and caught lots of numbers but didn't find alot of the jumbos that has been the talk all year.  I guess being from SD I am kinda spoiled as we see alot of big perch here.  I would guess our average size was the 9-11 inchers and a few each day 13+  but really surprised at the numbers of small perch we found in different areas.  We spent alot of the time in the 30-45fow and really wanted to try shallower but it didnt pan out.   We fished eastern portion of DL and used quads to get around.  Most others were fishing out of pickups and after talking with several other groups they had about the same results as us.  Being our first time there, we spent a good portion of the time exploring different portions of the lake.  What a massive body of water!  It looks big on the map but you really appreciate the size when trying to break it down into smaller fishable pieces.  Would love to spend more than a few days there as only covered a small portion of it.  I think you are smart to use Perch Patrol for the first day as it could considerably narrow down your search.  Good luck this weekend and hope you have a good back..I didn't need an extension on my nils but buried the head several times. 

On the map we were looking at the east devils lake as it appeared to have 2 massive points going in opposite directions and with that had a lot of structure. Then there appeared to have a narrow channel to connect. All this kinda caught my eye as a hot spot. When you look at the map that is a lot of ground to cover. Were you fishing in that area?