By Mike Peluso

My report this week is one of relocation and more wind. I was able to guide Friday on Devils Lake before the hurricane and we did well. I’m now relocated to Lake Sakakawea so we will have about a month worth of reports from here.

Before I talk about Lake Sakakawea let’s get to what I saw on Devils before leaving. First, there is still a strong bobber bite on the lake. Things are just starting to change a little and bottom bouncers with spinners or for us the PK Dakota Disc shined. Both crawlers and leeches were working evenly. Like I said I’ll be up on Sakakawea now for a bit so my Devils Lake reports will taper.

I guess it doesn’t matter if I’m on Devils Lake or if I relocate to Lake Sakakawea. The wind will blow and has forced us to cancel two days out of four. I will say this however, when you get to fish, the fishing is pretty good!

My friend Jason Feldner and I decided to jump into the AIM walleye tournament on Sunday. We didn’t have time to prefish at all, but I was optimistic to go fish a few of my favorite spots with creek chubs. We had 98 perfect creek chubs for the derby and we had rigged all our rods to do this Sunday and this only. To our horror we woke up Sunday morning with only one live one left.

We contemplated not even going. After a mad scramble to figure things out, we decided to at least go fish since our entry fee was paid. We rolled into our first spot and watched multiple nice fish get caught. Of course, all the fish people were getting were definitely quality fish. We decide we would try plastics to just get a fish or two on the card and wait until we see the right mark to drop the one and only live creek chub we had. Sure enough, we marked a tank, I baited up, deployed, and pow – a 28 incher.

Unfortunately, after that fish we couldn’t get anything big to bite on the dead creek chubs or plastics. Another problem we had, is we didn’t even have any live bait on board or even crankbaits for that matter. I told Jason I feltlike we went into a gun fight with a butter knife, and he said it felt more like shooting pool with a rope. Somehow, we did what guides do by nature and caught plenty of what we call perfect guide fish and weighed 18-plus pounds for five walleyes.

So the walleye bite on Sakakawea right now is getting fun. You can pitch jigs and minnows (or dead creek chubs and plastic) and catch them up shallow. You can pull slow death rigs with crawlers and catch them. Lindy rigs with minnows or crawlers will also catch them. I’ve also heard cranks are working and of course if you want to catch big walleyes, get yourself some chubs!

Fish are scattered all over the depth column but pay close attention to the water temps, clarity, and current. There is a massive amount of water coming in now and you can actually see it rise throughout the day. The rest of June and most of July is booked but I do have openings in August.

Mike Peluso is a Dakota Edge Outdoors contributing writer and a licensed ND fishing guide specializing in walleyes on the state’s premier waters.

Featured Photo: Walleyes are biting on a variety of presentations as the switch to summer patterns occurs. DEO Photo by Mike Peluso.