Walleye fishing in South Dakota means one thing. Excitement!  With many different lakes to choose from, you’ll find Lake Oahe ranks high as one of the best places to go for chasing Old Marble Eyes.  I remember my first trip to Oahe.  It was the famed mid-June period.  The trip took the cake for numbers of 16 to 20 inch fish compared to any other place I’ve been.  Having never been on the lake and simply looking over the Hot Spots Map, we were able to boat 73 walleyes that first day!  With our big walleye of the day being a 25 incher.  

If you want to catch walleyes as fast as a tuna crew working the sea in Oahe during June you need to get intimate with trolling and casting crankbaits.  No other methods work as well when fish get spread out, are active, and you find concentrations up shallow on certain points.  

For the first half of the trip we trolled leadcore along the 15 to 18 foot breaks.  Number 7 Flicker Shad in Chrome Clown was a great producer.  Our bigger fish came on #9 Shad Raps in Natural Shad.  As the trip progressed lake Oahe’s water levels rose about 6 feet over the 5 days we spent there.  This really got the bulk of the fish moving and holding up shallow all day long.  By the last day we were only casting cranks to the hot points we found trolling.  Big walleyes ripped the rod out of our hands in 3 to 8 feet of water on that memorable day.

When you start off a fishing adventure by trolling crankbaits you’ll really get a feel for the big picture and what kinds of trends are happening with the walleyes.  On day one we trolled at 2.0 mph for 8 hours straight.  Starting up above Mobridge and working on downstream.  Covering roughly 16 miles of water we noticed what section the 16 inchers where holding in and what section the 19 inch plus fish were using.  We also noticed every time you saw rocks up on shore you caught walleyes, when it was loggy and woody, you caught smaller fish.  

As the water levels rose we noticed a trend.  We started to go 30 minutes without fish rather than 5 or 10 minutes.  The electronics also solidified our above the water observations.  We got into more fish by shifting up into 10 or 12 feet of water.  Then, you guessed it.  Those fish started to disappear.  You know with water levels rising fish will move shallow.  We scrapped the leadcore and worked Fireline behind the boat.  Another adjustment that helped in the clear water was to kill the kicker and troll with the bow mount electric.  

You also saw a preference in color change as you worked shallow water.  Natural shad became THE bait of choice.  As those last few days wore on we made the process of catching Oahe’s walleyes even more efficient.  We simply revisited the hot points with GPS icons on them that we found trolling.  The best points were roiled slightly by the wind or in some cases cattle in the water stirred up some sediment.  Looking for iconed points with the wind hitting them, or cattle drinking around rocky points guaranteed success!  

We had multiple big walleyes race up out of 3 feet of water and grab our baits as we pulled them out of the water to make another cast!  The action on Lake Oahe is nothing short of fantastic. The trick to fishing a large reservoir is trolling to catch and graph fish, paying attention to what section holds the larger fish, and being on your toes by watching the conditions – not other anglers.  By the last day we saw a lot of bored looking live bait riggers still working that deeper water.  There are many, many more refinements and other walleye wizardry to apply any time you’re fishing for walleyes.  I hope you’ll stop by my website to learn more about the craft of outwitting walleyes anywhere they swim.      

Stop by and see why Inland Walleye has created such a stir in the walleye community! This educational digital book will put all the secrets of walleye fishing at your fingertips. Visit http://www.inlandwalleye.com today and you can get some incredible FREE walleye fishing goodies, including MASTERING THE CRANKBAIT GAME. Download and read within minutes.

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