2 weeks and we will find icešŸ˜

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Them Northerns are supposed to be some darn good eating after you get rid of the Y bone. We have 1-2 Muskey lakes and thats about it as far as members of the pike family. We can get lots of good walleye and sauger though when they are running below the dams. Plenty of large mouth and some ok small mouth spots if you know where/when to look for them.
 
Walleye is popular here . I have not fished much for walleye cause i would have to drive 3hours or so to do that but I will probably do that this year . Pike is my main species personally. Have quite a few 39" but over 40 is still alluding me. Maybethis year I break the 40 mark
 
One year we took our annual trout trip to down below the Norfolk dam in Arkansas. Im actually not a huge fan of trout to eat but they got a great mix of rainbow, browns, cutthroat and some brookies. I do like them brookies and larger browns but rainbow are just garbage in my book. They are basically all hatchery fish. You get a old brown that has been eating right and the meat turns almost red like salmon. WAY better eating than fish eating hatchery chow.

Well we get there real early after driving all nite. Our room is not even available so we pull up to the boat launch right below the dam. Some guy is launching his boat a few minutes after we got there. We start chatting and he aint after trout at all. Turned out the walleye were running and they were huge. We ate good that night.

My buddy goes somewhere up north to ice fish once in a blue moon. They dont even want them trout but they will keep a couple Northerns.
 
Ive eaten so many trout at the "parks" and what we call "stockers". Camp fire, in the room minutes old from the water. You name it we tried it. Take a nice brookie or older brown/cutthroat and eat them side by side. The brookies at North Fork seem to spawn in the river even though they do limited stocking of them they need to be 14" or more to keep. So all the brookies you can eat are really tasty as far as trout go.

I catch and release virtually all my trout. Keep 1-2 big browns or cutthroats. Pretty rare to get lucky enough for a keeper brookie or a rainbow that is worth eating. At least in my book. Give me a walleye, sauger or a crappie any day. My buddie says them Northerns are even better eating than walleye. You just got to know how to clean them.
 
Just north of Mobridge. Next to the train bridge. Had more than one that got away that was that big or bigger. I usually get bit off as I am fishing for smallies. I had a HUGE norbie slash a 16" smallie as I retrieving it to the boat.
 
Itā€™ll be late December or early January before we have ice here but Iā€™m already getting ready. Iā€™m a pan fisherman and Iā€™m having a Thorne Bros rod put together plus I picked up a couple others. Nighttime crappie fishing is my favorite but I also fish perch and crappie in the light.
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Just north of Mobridge. Next to the train bridge. Had more than one that got away that was that big or bigger. I usually get bit off as I am fishing for smallies. I had a HUGE norbie slash a 16" smallie as I retrieving it to the boat.
I live in SD. on the pine Ridge rez. Was why i was asking. Figured that area was where you were. it seems to be a northern hot spot šŸ˜€
 
Sauger are closer to walleye and there is even a sauger/walleye hybrid too. Here lots of people just lump them together unless you are like my dad and call them perch. That is what he grew up calling them.
 
Actually, Sauger are better eating than Walleye. Better than perch too. Sauger and Walleye are far less prone to worm infestations in the meat than Perch.
 

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