Lake Oahe Fishing Report: May 26 – May 31, 2019
by Cliff Klein (NPAA 800) and Dan Goiffon (NPAA 794)
This year was an unusual year for Walleye fishing on Lake Oahe during this week. Mother Nature had played a cruel trick on the fish and fishermen. There was a warm spell with above normal temperatures and lake warming with a surface temp around 62.5 degrees (prime spawning temps). This was followed by a very unusual cold snap (below freezing temps) for 3 weeks of snow, sleet, heavy rains, and high winds. This weather pattern dropped the water surface temperature around 48 to 52 degrees.
The large amount of rain has feeder creeks pushing muddy water into Oahe making the fishing difficult. Limits of 14″ walleyes were had with the water clarity looking like hot chocolate or coco colored water. Lots of mud and debris was found in the water. For that matter large branches, trees, weed bundles, and other stuff were floating in the main part of the Cheyenne River (our usual starting point for fishing this time of the year). Other parts of Lake Oahe were not as bad and the water clarity was a little bit better, but there was still a lot of floating debris in the water and cloudy water.
Guides told us the big fish were biting last week but the change in weather has all the bite suffering now. Truly an unusual spring. The bite for walleye was anywhere from 15 to 30 feet. Dragging a bouncer with night crawlers or minnows with a little flash proved best. The fish are healthy with even the 14″ walleyes netting nice fillets normally seen on 16″ fish. Fishing was difficult, but it was still a great time out on the water with friends. We still manage to catch some nice fish. Here is our daily report:
Day 1: 5/26/2019: A 28 inch Walleye, a 16 inch Walleye, and 15 inch Stripped Bass. (some small Walleyes 12 inches or so were caught)
Day 2: 5/27/2019: Memorial Day, Storms and very windy. Could not get out to fish.
Day 3: 5/28/2019: Fished the gravel pits out of Akaska, SD. 12 fish caught; one 27 inch fish and one 15 inch fish (some small Walleyes 12 inches or so).
Day 4: 5/29/2019: Fished out of Bob’s boat launch and fished north of Whitlocks bay. 9 fish caught; one 15 inch fish the rest were 14 inches or less.
Day 5: 5/30/2019: Fished out of Bob’s boat launch and fished north and south of Whitlocks bay. 6 small Walleyes were caught
Day 6 5/31/2019: Launched out of Little Bend and fished Charlie Creek. One 20 inch walleye and one 15 inches walleye were caught.
