Sak Sampling. Quality walleyes continue to be found on Lake Sakakwea’s structure as a strong summer bite rolls on. DEO Photo by Mike Peluso.

By Mike Peluso

I split my time this week chasing walleyes on Lake Sakakawea and going after bass and musky over on Audubon.  We had a great week catching both the walleyes and bass.  If I was a diehard musky fisherman, I guess seeing the one we did is a victory supposedly. 

Sakakawea continues to shine!  I actually fished an entirely different area of the lake this week.  I was mainly trying to avoid getting in the way of the DWC guys out pre-fishing this week.  To my surprise I don’t need to travel very far in order to have good fishing.  We caught plenty of really nice walleyes. 

Not much is different on the eastern portion of Sakakawea as far as presentation and depth goes.  Slow death rigs with a half crawler pulled on points and humps going .9 to 1.0 mph in 12 to 22 foot of water was doing the trick. 

Now over to Audubon where we casted our arms off for bass and musky.  Deep weed edges seemed to be where the bigger smallmouth bass were.  Every time I fish over there I’m amazed at the quality of bass one can catch.  We even managed a few nice pike and walleyes this way.  

We did find a 40-inch plus musky lurking a weed edge that showed himself after chasing a bait to the boat.  We put ample amount of time in casting at this fish.  In true musky fashion it didn’t want to show itself again, unfortunately.  I believe it could be the same fish we saw last year in just about the same area.  Maybe next year is our year? 

I do have a few scattered dates left up here on Sakakawea if you are interested.  It’s hard to believe my Sakakawea guide season is winding down.  I usually don’t do much for guiding in September, but I plan on hitting the Missouri River near Bismarck in full force starting Oct. 1 and will run it hard until freeze up! So get ahold of me if you want a stress-free fishing trip.

Mike Peluso is a Dakota Edge Outdoors contributing writer and a licensed ND fishing guide specializing in walleyes on the state’s premier waters.