Fishing in North Dakota

In North Dakota, the water meets the prairie and fishing season never actually closes. North Dakota is open to angling activity throughout the spring, summer, winter, and fall seasons, each of which offers a unique freshwater experience for a variety of gamefish, including northern pike, walleye, sauger, saugeye, chinook salmon, rainbow trout, brown trout, muskellunge, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, and a wide variety of panfish. The most popular year-round species is the walleye, closely followed by a relative and favorite winter quarry, yellow perch.

The diversity of species in North Dakota is largely a result of stocking programs by the state game and fish department and a combination of natural reproduction in some waters. To add to existing fisheries, chinook salmon were introduced to the Missouri River system. A growing population of these fish represents one of the most successful inland populations of disease-free salmonids in the country. Though void of blue-ribbon trout streams, North Dakota’s lakes and farm ponds are becoming popular inland trout fisheries also, a direct result of stocking programs and the catch and release ethic of anglers.

However, most angling effort in the state centers on warmwater and coolwater species, and the three large bodies of water that comprise the state’s most popular fisheries are the Missouri River System, which includes two reservoirs (Lake Sakakawea and Lake Oahe), Devils Lake, and the Red River of the North.