Perch Fishing – Bucket List Trip!

For some of you, it’s a dream fishing trip. For others of you, it’s an annual fishing trip. And for most of you, you've never heard of it before. Devils Lake, North Dakota. Way out in the middle of no man’s land in northern North Dakota, the massive lake that holds world class gigantic perch that should be on every fisherman’s hit list.

These fish are massive out here and the weather is unforgiving. When we arrived for the first time the actual temp was below zero with wind chills in the negative 30's and the ice was three feet thick. Our first day I didn’t know what to expect, excited as we all woke up before day break and got around. We piled in suburban’s with our ice fishing gear and drove for miles and miles and finally reached a spot in the middle of the lake and our guide says "this is it". Those three words got me more excited than I ever have been before in my life to catch fish. After drilling through three feet of ice and firing up our propane heater and thawing out inside the insulated shanty we began to fish.

I've caught a few sizable perch back in my home land of Michigan before a few times but nothing like this. Fishing in about 30 feet of water, big Skandia tungsten jigs get hammered by these jumbo perch, 10-14 inchers until we limit out. And then do it all over again the next day. It’s not the length about these fish that is impressive, it is the jumbo bellies they have from devouring freshwater shrimp all day long. This lake also holds great numbers of pike and walleye and the fishing for them is respectably but nothing like the perch.

If you get a chance to go out west and give the fishing a try, you need to do it. North and South Dakota have some of the best ice fishing in the country.....

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