how is the bite at chamberlin fort thompson area thinking of going wed or thurs thanks
Went there last Saturday (4-22) and fished the Crow Creek area and also a little on the Kiawa Flats closer to Chamberlain. The best method we found was trolling/drifting with a bottom bouncer/walking sinker with a 4 foot snell and a minnow. No spinners--nothing flashy. We caught them all over in all different depths--I wish I could be more specific. We caught most of the keepers in 15-20 feet of water. Look/feel for a rocky bottom. We didn't limit out, but we did catch quite a few that were under 15 inches that we released and boated 5 walleye between 15-17 inches and 2 over 18. Good Luck!
A work associate just got back from fishing there this weekend. He was in a party of 6 boats fishing. Not all of the folks got their limit but in general the fishing was good.
My associate and his partner caught about 70 walleye in three days of fishing. Most of the fish were under the 15 inch minimum, but did keep limit of fish averaging about 16 inches.
About 1/2 of the fish were caught in 20 feet of water on a 3/8 oz chartruse jig and fat head minnow.
The other 1/2 of fish were caught trolling the rip rap with chartruse or a fire tiger shad rap.
They would troll the rip rap on windy days with the wind blowing straight into the rip rap. They would troll so close to the rip rap that the shoreside shadrap was running about 4 feet of water. This meant that the outside shadrap was running in 10-12 feet of water. They used a shallow running rap on the inside, and a deep diver on the outside. Most of the fish were caught on the shallow side when the wind was really driving into the shore. With the wind driving into the shore, the minnow were blown into the shore, and the Walleyes were fast behind.
When the wind calmed, the fish moved back to deeper water, and then if they continued to use shad raps, they would use deep divers, and put a couple of split shot on the line to get the raps down to the 12-15 feet level during the calm mid day periods.
The water was moderately muddy, so the bright florescent colors seemed to work best.
The bait of choice was a fathead minnow.
Take care
REW