DEVILS LAKE, N.D. – Even on Devils Lake, a fish-crazed oddity of nature, reality bites every once in a while. The reality of it, though, is that the place is in an intemperate mood after a spell of unseasonable cold and relentless winds in advance of the first day of competition on the year’s third stop on the Wal-Mart RCL Walleye Tour.
“I don’t think the fishing is going to pick up until Friday,” says Ranger pro Duane Ten Cate of Sioux Falls, S.D. “The wind has been switching 180 degrees daily, and with all the fronts, the fish have either moved deeper or have just stopped biting.”
A similar refrain comes from Lund pro Bobby Crowe of Paterson, Wash., who likewise has seen the shallow-water activity typical of the shorelines and flooded trees falter since air temperatures dropped from the 70s late last week and water temperatures fell from a peak of 57 degrees to the high 40s.
“A few days ago, I would have said it would be pretty easy,” Crowe says. “If everything had kept going the way it was, you would have needed 20 pounds a day to make the cut.”
Certainly there is no shortage of fish on Devils, a natural lake without an outlet that has tripled in size, to about 150,000 acres, following record rainfalls that started in the early 1990s. With the boost in fertility that accompanies the flooded trees and farmland, walleye populations have responded in kind, showing up in serious numbers of 4- and 5-pounders.
It’s just that they’ve been behaving badly as the upper Midwest has been continually peppered with cold snaps and frigid winds.
Even so, anything goes – or might go – on opening day of the Devils Lake event. Among the patterns that have been turning out fish one day but not the next are slip-bobbering with bait in less than 8 feet of water in flooded trees; casting crankbaits in Pelican Lake, a one-time standalone lake that not only has been usurped by Devils’ expansion but also turned out Crestliner pro Rick Walter’s winning weights here last year; bobbering, cranking and jigging in upstart beds of cabbage weeds; and even trolling deep over old cattail beds.
If there’s any consolation in the face of on-again, off-again action, it’s a forecast with lighter winds than the 30-mph squalls and daytime temperatures in the 40s that plagued the last few days of practice.
“Sun,” says Ten Cate. “We need some sun. The water temperature has been yo-yoing, so some warmth could really get the fish going again in the shallow trees.”
And which ones wind up producing could be something of a crapshoot.
“On Devils Lake, the more spots you have, the better,” Ten Cate says. “And I’ll roll from one to another.”
In each of them, all part of his shallow-water pattern, Ten Cate will try bobbers, cast crankbaits and pitch jigs. But despite the tricky conditions of late, Ten Cate says the fish seem not to have hightailed it elsewhere. The reason: They have been lolling after lures in shallow water – without biting – before vanishing.
Now the challenge is for the 174-boat field to get the fish to go in spite of themselves and the weather. The first indication will come when Wednesday’s weigh-in starts at 3 p.m. Central time at Spirit Lake Resort and Casino.
Wednesday’s conditions:
Sunrise: 5:43 a.m.
Temperature at takeoff: 46 degrees
Expected high temperature: mid-60s
Water temperature: 48-51 degrees
Wind: from the west at 12 mph
Relative humidity: 76 percent
Day’s outlook: mostly cloudy with scattered showers; chance of showers and thunderstorms 50 percent