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Posted

Thanks for the report! I hope to get out in the next week or two, but it's been a tough spring as far as me getting my boat on the water...

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

The fishing is fantastic right now on the Red up north for not only numbers, but also for larger fish. Sucker cutbait's been working very well fishing the bait tight to snags that are on outside bends or on straight runs near the main current. The 20+ pounders are showing up regularly.

We also caught walleyes, saugers, northerns and even a muskie on the Red last weekend on sucker cutbait.

No need to overthink it. Find a snag in or near current (larger snags are best), anchor above the snag, hook on a piece of sucker and cast it in just upstream from the snag. You'll catch fish.

Posted

I was hoping I could get some tips on fishing locations for the Red. I've never fished it before but it sounds like it has great opportunies for rough and game fish. The northern section seems to be pretty decent right now from what I've read. I may or may not have access to my boat this week so shore locations would help out a lot too. If anyone has any advice I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

Posted

What area are you thinking about? Narrow down a section of the river and it'll be a lot easier to help out...

Posted

I hit some spots on the Red and a tributary this weekend. It was nice to get out again and put a bend in the rod. I don't think I've had a fish on since last fall. The walleyes seem to have moved out of their spring spots but there were plenty of Northerns and Rock Bass to keep busy. It reminded me of my last trip out in the boat fishing for walleyes. All but one of the Northerns were hammer handles with the biggest probably around 4 pounds. The skeeters don't seem to be out yet which was a surprise. The dry weather we're having is good for something.

Posted

Thanks for the report, Nate. I'd imagine the walleyes have dispersed throughout the system pretty well now and will be pretty tough to pattern until the Fall. The river temps were in the mid 60's last Fri, so I'd guess the walleyes moved out of the Spring spots a couple weeks ago. That's ok, it just mean it's cattin' time!!! smile

Posted

We're north of GF, but we've been catching a good number of walleyes so far this spring and we haven't been actively fishing for them. While we've been fishing for cats, we've been catching walleyes right along with cats. Last Sunday for instance, we caught 5 nice walleyes and a whole lot of cats fishing snags. Smaller suckers fished Lindy rig style (snells 12" or less with circle hooks...same as cats) have been catching the walleyes for us but we even caught one on goldeye cutbait last time out.

If it's that the walleye population is up, the river level or environmental conditions, I don't know, but nice walleyes seem to be constantly biting this year and they're nice chunky fish.

We might have to spend some time targeting walleyes on the Red instead of heading to LOW to fish for them and see if we can get something figured out.

Posted

kfk- cool! It's not uncommon to have a decent walleye bite this time of year while chasing cats. However, my guess is that you're finding them scattered up and down the river and not all piled up in one small section of the river- is that right? In the Spring and Fall they tend to bunch up in relatively specific areas, but after they do their Spring thing, they tend to scatter pretty quickly. They can still be caught, but it's typically not in the numbers you can get into in the Spring and Fall and it tends to be much more of a "here today, gone tomorrow" kind of pattern (not that you can't get on a decent bite for a week or two at a time on occasion).

Another weird thing that seems to happen this time of year is that you can catch walleye on cutbait. I rarely catch them on cutbait at other times of year, but around this timeframe I've caught some nice walleyes on cut sucker and goldeye.

Posted

Don't believe the fishing report in the GF Herald. The cats are biting all day long in shallow water on sucker, goldeye, frogs and night crawlers. Everything's working now and the sunnier, the better. They like the warm water because that's where the food is at. No need to go out early or stay late to catch nice cats because it's an all day bite.

Shallow snags near the main current tend to hold the largest fish for me, but there are cats every where. Try a small hole in or near the current if if no snags are available such as around Drayton or Pembina.

Posted

Only fished snags yesterday in the Oslo area and they were holding lots of cats, but we never found the big ones. Most of the ones we caught were in the the 22-28 inch range. The walleyes were right in the snags along with the cats, though, so we kept fishing them. Frogs seemed to be working best for both cats and walleyes, but sucker was working too. Our nice fish of the day was a 28" walleye caught on a frog.

Posted

New to this area of fishing. I have done a bit of fishing on the red at the north and midtown dams. Also tried Johnson park. I have not had much luck other then catching snags and mooneyes. A few cats too. I'm looking for some advice on where to catch some bigger fish, maybe what to use. I've just been trying a hook and crawler, sometimes corn.

Also, is there any small ponds or makes close by to Fargo that I could cast for a norther or bass? Maybe on the red?

Is the shyenne good for anything? I've heard about that river but never been to it.

Thanks for the advice!

Posted

Hi Erik,

For cats you might consider trying cutbait- either cut sucker minnows or cut up goldeye. Cut them in about 1" or 2" chunks and put them on a decent sized hook. I use a slip bobber with about 2' of line under it to catch goldeye (crawlers work well). I think cut up the goldeye and use that for catfish bait. Keep hitting different spots until you find some fish.

The Sheyenne can definitely be good at times. Average size is a little smaller, but still you can get some nice catfish there.

As far as pike or bass close to Fargo, that's tougher this time of year. You'll probably have to drive over 30 minutes to get into good fishing for them right now.

Good luck!

Posted

I was looking at fishing around the Fargo - Georgetown area. Just want to catch anything that bites and maybe a big catfish.

Are there any good places for Drum within that stretch, never had the chance to catch one around my area?

Posted

Put a hook on a worm and throw it in the red. If you don't catch a drum almost instantly, you're doing something wrong.

Posted

Put a hook on a worm and throw it in the red. If you don't catch a drum almost instantly, you're doing something wrong.

LOL- isn't that the truth! Like Tyler said, you should be able to find some drum if you give it a go. You might also catch goldeye, sucker, carp, walleye, catfish, and a dozen or more other critters...

Posted

....I've caught nearly everything you listed except Freshwater Drum. I can't even tell you how many stonecats my group and I caught, they were really annoying. Down river from the north dam in Fargo someone even caught a white bass but no drum. Walleye, sauger, channel cats, stonecats, goldeye, redhorse, and northern pike that's what we managed to pull in.

Posted

Huh, that's surprising! I don't have any big tips other than to keep moving and try different spots. Some days/places, you can't keep the sheephead off, no matter what you throw out there...

Posted

Hello guys,

Was fishing for panfish around fargo and caught my first 2 catfish with plastic softbaits ! Awesome !

60-65 cm for each fish, was good fighters ! Glad to know that this fish can bit plastic baits !

[img:center]614020catfish1.jpg

Posted

Nice, Nico. While you can catch some aggressive fish on plastice, you'll have a lot better luck using cutbait if you're targeting them.

Posted

Thanks,

No I was not targeting that fish. Few people was fishing with crawler and other with minnow and I didn't see other channel cat only some small cat and goldeyes when I was there.

I went back tonight to the river and caught 3 sauger, one again it was the first time i caught taht fish ! This river is awesome, too bad that no bass are really present ...

Posted

Yes, the variety of critters that are willing to bite on your line in the Red is wonderful! Cats can and obviously do hit baits besides the standard stuff. Ed Carlson used to target cats with crankbaits and at times did very well doing that. When they're aggressive, catching cats on cranks is pretty dang fun!

Bass on the rivers locally is very tough. There are a few small windows when you can target smallies, but they're small and they seem to close quickly.

Posted

Caught again a nice sauger this evening ! Around 35 cm !

There is more sauger than walleye in the red ?

The sauger is probably the less fighting fish I met ever.... !

Posted

Hi Nico,

Walleyes can be tough to locate this time of year. They're patternable at some times, but not others and predicting when and where you can figure them out is really tough. Spring and Fall are the prime time for walleyes on the Red and the local tribs. There can be some great walleye fishing here during those windows and some very nice fish are caught every year.

Posted

We were invited to travel to Grand Forks with another couple for a buddy's wife's 30th birthday, and we towed the boat over. After chatting with another buddy who guides the Red about the bite, we had a game plan. We hit the river around 4:30 and were hooked up within 3 minutes. The bite was hot from the time we got set up until the sun went down. We caught roughly 60 cats and lost or missed as many. It was non-stop cutting bait, baiting, netting, or battling. Cats ranged from small eater-sized to hefty battle-warn brutes...

Goldeye and walleyes were on the bite as well. We caught everything using 6oz. of lead and cut suckers...

What an awesome trip!

full-1826-21509-545176_4081015905834_202

full-1826-21510-545362_10151024954101276

full-1826-21511-577697_4081016785856_156

Posted

Nice!

Posted

Those are some sumo kitties! Love the picture of that pale one. Man, I wish I could get up to GF again. Sounds like it's prime time for catfish.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Rumor has it that the Red between Grand Forks and Lockport is putting out MANY 50+ fish days.

Posted

Yep, and it's more than just rumor- I talked with a buddy of mine yesterday and he and two friends boated 60 in four hours a couple days ago. Biggest was 22 lbs.

Posted

Fished below the Drayton dam with my brother and our foreign exchanged student from Germany. Hit the water roughly 10 am and had our first cat 2 minutes later. Had a good day on the water with 7 cats over 22 the biggest being 36 inches. Took home a mixture of nice eaters. 3 in the smoker right now. Cut bait was the best for us and we went through a lot of it. Missed three bites for every fish caught and we were broken off 4 times on big fish. Little bro caught his biggest cat ever and exchange student caught first and biggest cats ever. A memorable time with plenty of pictures.

  • 2 months later...
Posted

Had some fun in Drayton about a month back. Just got around to cranking out some video.

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