Cold Gold. Wild swings in weekly weather patterns have made spring fishing challenging for some, but those who do venture out on the Missouri River near Bismarck are finding consistent action. DEO Photo by Mike Peluso.

By Mike Peluso

For some reason this spring the winter weather just doesn’t want the Missouri River to give up her bounty of walleyes! I fished every day this past week except for Friday when we got three inches of snow and bitterly cold weather and it’s been a much different season on the river when compared to previous years. There are lots of walleyes and a lot of nice ones, but not as many mega giants as in those past springs. I’m not saying there aren’t any out there because there always are, but there is a noticeable decline.

With the ups and downs this spring, another thing which has begun for our walleyes on the Missouri River is the spawn. Our water temperatures hit the upper 40s prior to the snow last Friday and lots of the males were milking and I even caught a couple females that had for sure spawned.

I’m not 100 percent sure, but I still believe a bunch of really big walleyes slipped past us while the main river was frozen. We also had the Heart River, Apple Creek, and the Knife River open prior to the main river opening. The last time this happened we experienced a similar spring.

The one thing I will say with my almost 50 years of experience on the Mighty Mo, is we will see three different waves of the walleye spawn. The first wave is here now. The main wave will happen towards the end of April. The last wave always seems to happen right around that first week of May.

Those water temperatures took a hard hit with Friday’s snow and cold weather, by Saturday it was 36.6 degrees on my sonar, down from 47 last Thursday. With our warmer temps and low water conditions this week, it should heat back up extremely fast.

I would anticipate the walleyes to really get into biting mode with our warmup. Like I said earlier, we are catching lots of fish and in my opinion, they are the perfect guide fish. I’m just hoping that with the next phase of the spawn we see some more of those picture fish!

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