BISMARCK, ND (trfnews.i234.me) Here’s the southeast North Dakota and Red River fishing outlook, provided by the North Dakota Department of Game & Fish.
welcome to this week’s edition of outdoors online a weekly webcast produced by the North Dakota Game and Fish Department I’m your host Tom Jensen we continue our fishing previews this week with a visit to the south east part of the state Vijay crass is a fishing supervisor for the southeast district Vijay you manage a lot of lakes in those Cheyenne and James River watersheds that are really some small good fishery right yep we do we have a pretty diverse assortment of lakes to fish everything from you know small 40 acre impoundment thousand acre lakes there in James River in and shyam every watershed you have a lot of varied species in your district also the walleyes probably the bread-and-butter fish for your district let’s talk about some of your better walleye like sure well right now we’ve we’ve had a lake that’s developed over the last decade or so craft Slough on that one it’s got a really good good population of walleyes in it various sizes as for the people I’d like to have some table fare there’s the good eater size and others fish you know up to eight nine ten pounds in there walleye lies – so we’ve got Mallard Marsh which is north of Jamestown that’s pretty popular a lot of either size fish in that one good numbers there Fox Lake Barnes County over code Valley City that one’s got a history of being a pretty good walleye fishery especially you know early on when people can get out there and and access the before it gets too weedy and so forth in the summer and so on let’s talk about some of your better northern lakes it seems like everybody that I’ve talked to has a lot of northerns and of course some of your some of your fisheries are better than others yeah there’s no doubt about that we’ve got a lot of options for pike probably not quite as many as we hadn’t you know the years where we had a lot of water and natural reproduction so forth but Lake L’Amour actually has come around pretty nicely from fairly low Pike numbers to pretty good numbers now good sized fish in there fish up to you know here 39 inches or so another one is Barnes Lake that’s in Stutsman County that’s a good a good Pike Lake lots of lots of numbers in there those are probably the two better ones and then we have Clin Lake down by also by L’Amour that puts out pike every year especially there in the wintertime but they can be good summertime fishing too so those are probably the you know your main lakes the fish pike on most of the supervisors that I talked to so far when we talked pan fish we talked perch or gills blue gills that kind of thing you have the luxury of having some really good crappie lakes in your district we do and it’s going to continue that way for quite some time we’ve got you know we had some issues on pipestem with some you know recruitment or age classes we had one dominant age class out there and I kind of held the fishery for quite a few years and now we’ve found that there’s several other age classes present so which means good future fishing and a good age classes so you got a variety of fish from seven inches all the way up to 13 inches copy wise in pipes in Jamestown reservoir on the other hand is similar situation we have a little better recruitment there so the numbers are high in Jamestown and pretty good average size this year probably about a ten and a half inch average should be kind of half to 11 inch average this year so yeah crappie fishing is going to be good again yep we’ve mentioned perch fishing of course before you do have some excellent perch fishing in the winter a lot of your lakes now does this carry over into spring and summer as well it does I think anglers tend to focus on perch a little more in a winter time and probably chase walleyes and the bigger predator fish in the summer a little more but we’ve got moon Lake for example would be a good place to go to catch perch in the summer lots and lots of numbers there you have a good place to take kids and have action you know some of the other lakes you know typically we’ve got depends on the lake you know landowners are kind enough to give us you know access points to some of these lakes and people can access them in a winter time a little easier off of these types of situations where we don’t boat ramps and so forth so yeah Moon Lake for sure would be one that you know if you wanted to go boat fishing for some perching with a good access and stuff that’s got no shortage on in there you had some issues with an aquatic nuisance species in the James River several years ago what’s the status on that now well you know we monitor that every year typically electro fish and seining now and and even some Gill netting trap hanging on James and the good news is there still seems to be only one age class present that doesn’t seem to be that the species is expanding at all in the James River which is good good to know or silver car these are silver therapy us and we’ll continue to do that I think last year we we sampled one or so they’re a little easier to see jumping out of the water than they are capture they’re pretty in they’re pretty pretty evading when it comes to you know techniques to get to catch on but again I think we’re it’s good to see that we’re when we have at one age class so no signs of reproduction and the James at least as far up so I’m going to put you on the spot Vijay like I do with all the rest of the supervisors I’m going to ask you to take a day off and go fishing now we have open water on most of the lakes some years we don’t but we do have that luxury this year take a day off go fishing anywhere in your district for any species where would you go what would you do well I maybe wait a little little longer but I kind of like the bass bass fishing and and we’ve got a couple different bass lakes that are that are really good they’re small lakes so you can hit them on it’s windy and not have any issues and so forth with that so Hainish Martin is a good one good good numbers of largemouth bass and size is there a bigger Lake that we’ve kind of just recently started assessing the population of smallmouth bass in his Lake Ashtabula we’ve discovered a really healthy population of smallmouth bass in that Lake I anticipate that that’s going to be I think something you know forthcoming in terms of the development of that fishery and people are probably going to start capitalizing in a little more on it because it it is got some really nice-sized fish and good numbers so those are the two places Highland probably have that’s really kind of an underused resource in your getting on and doing that all right BJ thanks thanks now we move on to our report from the Red River and it’s supervisor Todd Casper’s Todd the Reds a little different in that it’s cold managed by Minnesota it’s of course the border lake does how to cover cause any issues I’m not really I mean the biggest issue is we just try to keep our regulations for fishing more or less the same between the different states and like you said we cold managed with Minnesota and also South Dakota I’m a little a little bit we do a cooperative fish survey every five years on the red and usually a Creole survey will coincide with that so not really any issues just know a few little things to try to keep regulation of course you’re trying to keep ans a very minimum which can be tough course is you know there are zebra mussels in the Red River and also anglers should be mindful of that and just follow the ANS rules to minimize the chance of spreading those around alright let’s talk about the Red River itself Todd it’s a pretty diverse fishery in that it has a lot of species yeah there’s over 70 species of fish in the red not all of them are species that people would want to fish for of course but you know there’s the channel catfish walleye Sagar Pike smallmouth bass or kind of the main ones there’s also getting to be more lake sturgeon from stocking efforts as well let’s talk about each one of those species wanted a time Todd start with the bread-and-butter fish of the Red River the catfish yeah I mean like you mentioned the catfish is probably the backbone of the fishery on the red and it’s one of the best channel cap fisheries in North America in terms of you know trophy size channel catfish that you can catch but there’s also good numbers of you know more eater size fish as well alright let’s move on to another species and at times there can be world-class fishing for walleye yeah I mean why are another major species in the red and there’s you know trophy size walleye available at times too and you know good amount of those eaters size type fish as well right this would be kind of different fishing in that you don’t actually put a boat in at the boat ramp and find a sandbar or something like that on a river some of it is dam fishing and and things yeah I mean I’m sure there’s a variety of other ways people catch them too but a lot if this time of year probably a lot of effort is more towards you know dams or or like that Riverside Rock arch and grand for something that concentrates fish sure don’t we but the northern fishing pike fishing is is pretty good too we don’t have as good of information on on the pike as we do the catfish of course but you know there’s a good fishable northern pike population the red notoriously is a pretty muddy lake so you don’t have river so you don’t necessarily have a lot of pan fish yeah conditions aren’t aren’t that great for pan fish you don’t hear too much about and fishing there’s not really all that much backwater habitat that they would probably need so that’s why their populations are pretty low okay this time of year in late April I would imagine where you would go I’m going to ask the question anyway take a day off and go fishing any place on the Red River in that district where would you go on what would you do oh I suppose if I were to go fishing on a day like this and probably just try and below that rock arch in Grand Forks and probably try for walleye and Sagar alright Todd thanks thank you if you need directions to one of the lakes the guys mentioned or in fact any fishing lake in North Dakota the new March April edition of North Dakota outdoors magazine is an invaluable tool the special fishing issue has Lake Maps driving directions fold access information and even what species of fish are contained in each Lake also a fishing outlook from gaming fish biologist if you have a subscription to the magazine that should be in your mailbox very soon or the issue is viewable online at the game of fish website at GNB gov for BJ and Todd and the rest of the staff here at North Dakota Game and Fish thanks for joining us for outdoors online we’ll see you again next week
Fishing Outlook for Southeast North Dakota and the Red River
