Best Fishing Spots in North Dakota

A Deeper Look at Fishing in North Dakota

Fishing Heritage in North Dakota

North Dakota fishing is one of the great underrated stories in American sport angling. Most people who have not been here picture a flat, dry prairie with a couple of farm ponds, but the reality is one of the largest impounded reservoirs in the country, a wild Missouri River system, and a glacial lake fishery that has rewritten the record books for walleye anglers. The roots of fishing in North Dakota run deep with the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Lakota people, who lived along the Missouri River bottoms and harvested catfish, sturgeon, paddlefish, and northern pike from the river and its oxbows for thousands of years. When Lewis and Clark wintered at Fort Mandan in 1804 and 1805, their journals describe trading for and catching prairie fish that the expedition had not seen before, including channel cats and sauger.

Settlement in the late 1800s brought commercial fishing on Devils Lake and the Red River, and ice harvest on the bigger lakes was a winter business before refrigeration. The transformation that built the modern fishery came in the mid-twentieth century when the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program built Garrison Dam in 1953, creating Lake Sakakawea, and Oahe Dam downstream creating the upper end of Lake Oahe inside the state line. Almost overnight, North Dakota had two enormous cold, deep impoundments that turned out to be perfect walleye, northern pike, and salmon water. The North Dakota Game and Fish Department began stocking chinook salmon in Sakakawea in the 1970s, an experiment that worked spectacularly and gave landlocked anglers a salmon fishery in the middle of the prairie.

Devils Lake, meanwhile, exploded in size starting in the early 1990s when wet years caused the closed-basin lake to swell from around 70 square miles to more than 200, drowning farms and roads but creating an enormous, fertile new perch and walleye factory. Today the Game and Fish Department manages over 400 fishable waters and runs one of the most data-driven walleye programs in the country, and the state has quietly become a destination for traveling anglers who want big fish without the crowds.

The Best Fishing Spots in North Dakota

Lake Sakakawea is the centerpiece. At more than 178 miles long and the third-largest manmade lake in the United States by surface area, Sakakawea holds walleye, northern pike, smallmouth bass, chinook salmon, and lake trout in serious numbers. The chinook fishery is the rare prairie wonder, with fish stocked at the Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery and trolled by downrigger anglers out of Garrison, Pick City, and Fort Stevenson. Smallmouth fishing on Sakakawea is also world class, especially in the rocky points and shoreline around Van Hook Arm and Tobacco Garden.

Devils Lake is the second pillar. Often called the Perch Capital of the World, Devils Lake produces jumbo perch over 15 inches with regularity and is one of the few places where an angler can realistically catch a perch and a 30-inch walleye in the same hole. The expanded lake is full of flooded timber, roads, and fence lines that hold fish year-round, and the winter ice fishing scene in towns like Devils Lake city and Minnewaukan is a destination of its own. Lake Oahe, on the South Dakota border, gives North Dakota anglers access to legendary cold-water walleye and smallmouth fishing in the upper river canyon.

The Missouri River itself, both above Sakakawea around Williston where it comes in from Montana and below the Garrison Dam tailrace, is a phenomenal walleye, sauger, and smallmouth fishery, and the tailrace below Garrison is a top spot for paddlefish snagging in May. The Red River of the North along the Minnesota border is the Midwest's premier channel catfish destination, where 20-pound channel cats are routine. Lake Audubon, Jamestown Reservoir, and the Heart and Sheyenne rivers all add depth to the menu. Add hundreds of small prairie potholes stocked with bluegill, bass, and pike, and you have a lot of water for a state that most people drive past.

Game Fish Species You'll Find in North Dakota

Walleye is the king and most of the marketing, the tournaments, and the Friday night fish fries revolve around it. Sakakawea, Oahe, Devils Lake, and the Missouri River below Garrison all produce walleye in the 20- to 28-inch range, and the state record sits over 15 pounds. Yellow perch are the second pillar, and Devils Lake is the most reliable jumbo perch fishery in the lower 48. Northern pike are everywhere there is water, with Sakakawea, Devils Lake, and the smaller prairie lakes giving up 40-inch-plus pike with regularity.

Smallmouth bass have exploded on Sakakawea and the Missouri tailwater since their introduction, and the state has become a dark-horse smallmouth destination for traveling tournament anglers. Chinook salmon are the surprise — Sakakawea is one of only a handful of inland chinook fisheries in the country, and the spring and fall runs see fish in the 15- to 30-pound class. Channel catfish dominate the Red River and Missouri, with trophy fish over 20 pounds common. Paddlefish are present in the Yellowstone-Missouri confluence area and the Garrison tailwater, and the state runs a controlled snagging season every May that draws anglers from across the country.

Lake trout, sauger (and saugeye where stocked), white bass, crappie, bluegill, largemouth, and even some bull trout in the far west complete a lineup that punches well above what most outsiders expect.

Fishing Licenses and Regulations in North Dakota

All anglers age 16 and over need a North Dakota fishing license issued by the Game and Fish Department, which is available online, by phone, and through licensed vendors statewide. Residents and nonresidents have separate fee schedules, and a 3-day or 10-day nonresident option is popular with traveling anglers. Special permits are required for paddlefish snagging on the Missouri-Yellowstone confluence and for the Garrison Dam tailrace area, and these are issued through a tag system with daily catch limits and harvest-day restrictions. Devils Lake has its own slot rules for walleye in some years to protect spawning fish.

Border waters with South Dakota (Lake Oahe), Minnesota (Red River, Lake Traverse), and Montana (Missouri and Yellowstone confluence) have reciprocal license agreements and sometimes shared regulation booklets. The state requires anglers to clean, drain, and dry boats and gear because of an active aquatic invasive species program, and zebra mussels have been confirmed in several waters. Always check the current Game and Fish proclamation before you go because daily limits, length limits, and special regulations can change annually.

Best Seasons for Fishing in North Dakota

Open water on the big reservoirs typically runs from late April when ice goes out through October. Walleye fishing peaks in late May and early June as fish move shallow to spawn and feed, then again in September and October as they fatten for winter. The Garrison tailrace paddlefish season runs through May, with strict harvest-day rules. Chinook salmon runs on Sakakawea peak in spring as fish gather near tributaries and in late summer near the Garrison Dam.

Catfish on the Red River fish best from June through September. Ice fishing is enormous here. From late December through March, Devils Lake, Sakakawea, and dozens of smaller waters host wheelhouses, fish houses, and snowmobile access points, and the perch and walleye bite under the ice is what brings many traveling anglers to North Dakota in the first place.

Local Fishing Tips for North Dakota Anglers

Number one tip is to embrace the wind. North Dakota is a windy state and most days you will fish in 15 to 25 mile per hour wind. Plan for it, bring a heavier jig than you think you need, and use the wind to drift productive flats rather than fighting it on a trolling motor. Two, on Sakakawea, learn to read main lake structure.

The lake is huge and featureless to first-timers, but find a rocky point dropping into 25 to 35 feet of water and you will find walleye and smallmouth stacked on it. Three, for jumbo perch on Devils Lake in winter, fish small. A two-inch tungsten jig with a single waxworm or minnow head will out-fish bigger presentations most days. Four, if you are after chinook on Sakakawea, you need a downrigger, a trolling rod, and patience.

The fish hold deep and the bite windows can be short, but a single fish makes the trip. Five, never skip the tailrace. The Garrison Dam tailrace is one of the most consistent fisheries in the state for walleye, sauger, and smallmouth, and the paddlefish season there is one of a kind. Six, talk to the bait shops in Minnewaukan, Garrison, Williston, and Devils Lake before you launch — they know exactly what is biting that day and what depth the fish are holding at.

North Dakota Fishing FAQ

Sources & Further Reading

• https://gf.nd.gov/fishing
• https://www.fws.gov/refuge/garrison-dam-national-fish-hatchery
• https://www.parkrec.nd.gov/
• https://www.usbr.gov/gp/dkao/
• https://www.fws.gov/refuge/devils-lake-wetland-management-district