I will be heading to Devil's Lake this summer for our annual trip and I wanted to try trolling the Flats. I am usually a live-bait rigger but am starting to get into crankin'. Any tips would be greatly appreciated--such as presentation, equipment and of course the GPS coordinates to the 10-lbers:-) Thanks to the pros for all the help.

To find the flats all you need to do is troll right out in front of the town of Minnewauken.........the whole area in front of the town is great for producing large eyes.......the depth is a consistent 17-19' all through that area. There is old cattail beds on the bottom and finding them is hit and miss but they show up like a sore thumb on your sonar. Some pretty effective methods is to use small cranks on lead core or the large reef runners. I have had some pretty decent luck on the 25A bombers too..... chances are if you can get it to the bottom it'll catch fish. I have used silver and black one day and caught fish and the next day all I could catch them on was a ugly black color with some orange dots.. trial and error will tell. good luck..............

The flats on Devils Lake are a great place to start. Last summer the key depths were 18 to 21 feet. The area just out form the boat ramp at Minnewaukan was the best for me. Any bait would catch fish when the biote was hot. Deep jr Thundersticks and the larger Thunder Crank were my best baits. When things get tough try lead core and baby thundersticks or other small stick baits. Planer boards help but are not neccessary especially when using the lead.

These fish are not always on the bottom. It is not uncommon to find eyes as high as ten feet up. These are caught just like fishing thr great lakes. Fish suspended with cranks and boards and cover o lot of water. The schools usually stay put for a while so use a gps to stay on them.

Johnnie,

I purchased a map last year that shows the Minnewauken flats to be located directly south of Grahams Island. I always was under the impression that the "flats" were considered the area just out in front of the town of Minnewauken. Is my map incorrectly labeled? Could someone clarify this for me? I have always fished in front of Minnewauken with good success but always considered making the trek to the area south of Grahams because of this map.

Thanks....

That is correct, runs all the way to Mauvee coulee and then east towards the casino
The Golden road is the place.

Actually not to casino but east to those big cottonwoods north of the farm

The map has the old Minnewaukon flats labled. this was before the water level went up 25'. The flats have expanded about 100x in size and can be considered almost anywhere south of grahams to infront of town.

Chad

I worked on a project at Minnewaukan in 1995 when the lake level was about 1432. Currently it is 1447.5 I believe. We constructed a earthen berm around the city lagoons. Everything looks different now but as I recall this area would be straight out from the boat ramp probably 800-1000ft N-NW. This area should really provide good irregular structure. They also put a hundred or so round hay bales for wave protection along the east and north side of the lagoons. All this stuff is now underwater of course and probably would explain the excellent fishing there.