As the temperature drops, we know ice fishing season is rapidly approaching! The entire Midwest can offer fantastic ice fishing. South Dakota is a true bucket-list destination, with trophy perch and walleye drawing anglers from all over. The Iowa Great Lakes is also a top notch panfish destination and incredible numbers of fish can be caught. Even eastern Nebraska can produce great ice fishing, including lakes in the Omaha area.
We break down some of our favorite lakes across South Dakota, northwest Iowa and eastern Nebraska. Learn about some of the top lakes to target and we also touch on where to look and what to use to have success. Featured South Dakota lakes also offer an entire Lake Profile to give you a scouting report on the lake and help you get on the bite faster!
South Dakota
South Dakota features some of the best ice fishing across the entire ice belt. The Glacial Lakes region is famous for excellent walleye and yellow perch fishing. The Missouri River offers spectacular walleye, northern pike and even crappie fishing, including the often overlooked Fort Pierre National Grasslands. The Grasslands can offer fantastic bluegill and crappie fishing. The Black Hills region provides a different type of fishery, with trout often being the highlight of an angler’s catch.
Glacial Lakes Region
The Glacial Lakes region of South Dakota is famous for it’s spectacular perch fishing, but the walleye fishing is nothing to scoff at either. The Glacial Lakes region features thousands of bodies of water. These waterbodies range from only a few acres in size to a couple thousand acres. Heavy precipitation over the past several decades has resulted in rapidly expanding waterbodies. What used to be small duck sloughs are now large lakes. What used to be a field full of pheasants, now has a school of walleyes swimming over it. This has resulted in hundreds and thousands of options for anglers to find fish.
The larger, well-known lakes are the flashy ones. These popular lakes often draw the attention of anglers, but there are numerous other small lakes and sloughs that are coined “hidden gems”. These hidden gems can be difficult to find, but the treasure is worth it.
Let’s break down some of the most well-known lakes across the area and highlight some of the top choices anglers have to experience the famous Glacial Lakes region fishing. Select lakes will also have a deeper dive into location, presentation and other relevant information needed to plan your trip!
Webster/Waubay Area
The two largest lakes in the area, Waubay Lake and Bitter Lake, are the most well-known lakes around. This is for good reason. Both of these lakes offer spectacular walleye and yellow perch fishing. The Webster area is one of the most famous areas for expanding waterbodies and Bitter and Waubay are no exception. Both of these lakes used to be relatively small, but expansion and connecting with other nearby waterbodies has turned them into the largest lakes of the region.
There are numerous other lakes that can hold fish as well.
Antelope Lake, south of Webster, is known for being an excellent trophy lake, but there is an insane number of 12-15 inch walleye in the system right now. Antelope should produce some excellent fishing this ice season.
Lake Opitz is another lake that can offer excellent numbers of walleyes, but some trophy perch as well.
Enemy Swim Lake features an excellent bluegill and crappie fishery, which makes it unique for the area. Anglers who can find the weed edges often have terrific success as fish will run these areas.
Other lakes to investigate in the area are: Piyas Lake, Pickerel Lake, Blue Dog Lake, Hazeldon Lake, Roy Lake, Buffalo Lake, Horseshoe Lake and Lynn Lake
Featured Lakes: Waubay Lake, Bitter Lake
Clark Area
The Clark area is famous for world class yellow perch. Many anglers flock to Clark in search of South Dakota gold! The Clark area features shallow, main basin style lakes that can make locating fish difficult, but the reward is worth it.
Lakes such as Dry Lake #2 and Indian Springs are the prime examples of these lakes, but other lakes in the area can produce as well. 3 Buck Slough can offer a tremendous yellow perch bite, but big walleye are also present too.
Don’t count out other area lakes though. Reid Lake, Dry Lake #1, and Lamb Slough are certainly worth checking out and can provide excellent fishing for anglers.
Featured Lakes: Indian Springs/Antelope Complex, Dry Lake #2, 3 Buck Slough
Brookings Area
The Brookings Area features numerous lakes that can all provide fishing for a wide variety of species. The most well-known lake in the Brookings area is Lake Poinsett. Poinsett has produced spectacular fishing the past several years and you can catch both numbers and size of walleye, yellow perch and crappie.
Two lakes near Lake Preston can produce some excellent fishing as well. Lake Whitewood features an excellent early ice yellow perch bite as well as the potential for large walleye and northern pike. Although this lake is a favorite at the beginning of the season, many years fishing can be good all year long. Lake Thompson is a fantastic crappie fishery, but can also produce good walleye fishing as well as yellow perch. Trophy caliber northern pike also roam through the waters of Thompson.
Closer to Brookings, three nearby lakes provide excellent trophy walleye opportunities. 81 Ponds can be considered one of the best lakes in the area to catch a 30 inch walleye. While nearby Lake Sinai and Brush Lake are known for fewer trophy caliber fish, but fish up to 14 pounds being present.
81 Ponds also can provide excellent yellow perch fishing in addition to the walleye action. Lake Sinai features an excellent crappie fishery and the fishing throughout the evening and night for crappie can be spectacular. Yellow perch and even smallmouth bass can be caught by anglers in the daylight hours too. Brush Lake also has a strong yellow perch population and the fishing can yield both numbers and size all day long.
Lake Campbell can provide good action fishing, with jumbo yellow perch not out of the realm of possibility.
Don’t rule out Oak Lake and Lake Hendricks either. Both of these lakes can produce some excellent perch fishing and do not generate near as much attention as their surrounding neighbors.
Featured Lakes: Lake Poinsett, Lake Thompson, Lake Whitewood, Lake Sinai, 81 Ponds
Missouri River Region
Lake Oahe
The Missouri River draws anglers throughout the open water season, but there can be good fishing to be had through ice as well. Depending on the weather, ice conditions can vary greatly along the river.
The area that draws the most attention is Lake Oahe near Mobridge. The Mobridge, Pollock and Akaska areas can all produce excellent fishing for both numbers and size of walleyes. Any given day could produce a trophy caliber walleye, some days maybe even more than one!
Don’t rule out the crappie fishing either. Lake Oahe has an under the radar crappie population that features trophy caliber fish as well!
Check out Outrageous Adventures Guide Service for some of the best fishing Lake Oahe has to offer!
Lake Sharpe
Lake Sharpe can also produce some excellent ice fishing. Joe Creek, West Bend and Iron Nation can all produce good walleye fishing, but Sharpe has other species as well! A day on Sharpe might produce crappie, yellow perch and channel catfish in addition to your walleye.
Fishing closer to Pierre along Farm Island can also yield great results. Farm Island can produce walleye, crappie, yellow perch and even largemouth bass!
Lake Francis Case
Lake Francis Case can produce good fishing as well. Around Chamberlain, fishing Pontoon Bay can be a good choice and further down along Carpenter Bluffs and near the White River can all produce good fishing.
Fort Pierre National Grasslands
The Fort Pierre National Grasslands can all produce great fishing through ice. Though it doesn’t draw the attention the river does, many dams are real hidden gems!
Bluegill and yellow perch are the species most often found in angler’s bags. Largemouth bass may also take a bait as well, giving anglers a real rush!
Pin point certain dams you want to try. Many are only a few acres and can easily be fished thoroughly in a day. There are many options to choose from, so even if there are anglers on one dam there may be another one untapped just down the road.
Southeast Region
The Sioux Falls area can produce fish as well! While many anglers focus their efforts Brookings and north, the southeast region has many lakes that can offer great ice fishing.
Lake Madison can produce some excellent yellow perch fishing! There are some very large perch, some 13-14 inches or greater, swimming the depths of Lake Madison. These perch can also produce exciting fishing, as they can race in and annihilate even aggressive lipless lures.
Lake Vermillion, Diamond Lake, Island Lake, Clear Lake and Twin Lakes can all produce good fishing. Lake Marindahl, Loss Lake, Lost Lake and Beaver Lake are also worth checking out.
Black Hills/Rapid City Area
Don’t count out the fishing in the Black Hills and Rapid City area though! This area is unique as it can provide cold water fisheries and good trout action!
Pactola Lake has burst onto the scene as an excellent lake trout fishery. Deerfield Lake can also produce good fishing as well.
Angostura Reservoir is also worth checking out and can also provide good walleye fishing too.
Iowa
Iowa Great Lakes
Chris Seylar knows exactly what the Iowa Great Lakes are capable of. The Okoboji Lakes are some of the best panfish fisheries in the area.
West and East Okoboji are connected although they are very different fisheries. Invasive species such as zebra mussels, curly leaf pondweed as well as yellow bass have really effected these lakes; however, the system is still a terrific fishery. The yellow bass invasion has actually created a very different opportunity and present a fantastic target species for anglers taking kids or just targeting big numbers of fish.
On any given day, bluegill, yellow perch, crappie and yellow bass may all be found in an angler’s bag. It may take some drilling, but once you locate the school the fishing can be fantastic. Tungsten jigs and plastics or wax worms are great options.
Spirit Lake is one of Iowa’s premier walleye and yellow perch fisheries. The last few years walleye fishing has been at it’s best with plenty of limits filled as well as some mid-upper 20 inch fish present as well. The perch fishing is very inconsistent, but when it is good it is very good. Anglers targeting bluegill and crappie also have opportunities, though the fishing for these species can be very inconsistent as well.
Lost Island is one of Iowa’s “hidden gems” to local anglers as the lake can produce some excellent walleye fishing as well as some terrific panfish action as well. The Iowa Great Lakes really take the pressure off and that is what keeps this lake out of the spotlight. There was a point in time that it had the most walleye per square acre in the state, unfortunately a fungus came through and killed off some of the larger fish. The past several years the population has rebounded and is once again a terrific fishery. Yellow bass also present another angling opportunity, though not the size of the Okoboji fish they are still extremely fun to catch and excellent table fare.
Clear Lake always has produced some good fishing, but lately it has really become one of Iowa’s top fisheries. There was a tremendous amount of work done to the watershed as well as the lake itself and that has really paid off big time. The walleye fishing is very good. Anglers targeting crappie also can enjoy some very good numbers fishing as well as a very nice size structure. This was one of the first yellow bass fisheries in Iowa and the local guides and anglers have taken advantage of this invasive species turning it into a terrific angling opportunity.
Nebraska
Omaha Area
The Omaha area can actually produce some great ice fishing opportunities as well. Although the season is shorter, the ice fishing can still produce some hot action.
Wherspann Lake can produce excellent panfishing. It has an interesting tale. In November 2016 Nebraska Game and Parks applied an aggressive treatment of rotenone (a chemical used to kill fish) that resulted in over 250,000 gizzard shad being killed as well as a large number of goldfish.
Why would they do this? Gizzard shad feed on zooplankton. Zooplankton are a critical food source for every juvenile game fish species. The result of all these gizzard shad was that the bluegill and black crappie populations had been severely stunted with few fish over 7-8 inches for either species in the system.
Now post treatment the panfish populations are really doing well with some very nice bluegill as well as lots of numbers and good size black crappie in the system. There also is some very nice channel/blue catfish, walleye and largemouth bass present giving this lake something for anglers looking to catch a lot of fish or anglers looking to catch big fish.
Expect a good number of bluegill and crappie. Look for fish in deeper water along the fishing pier. There are also fish to be caught out of brush piles and from submerged stumps as well.
Lake Wanahoo is a relatively new reservoir located about 30-40 minutes west of Omaha. Wanahoo has a tremendous amount of structure from flooded shelterbelts, rocky fishing jetties and also submerged main lake structure as well. This makes for some really fun fishing. Wanahoo has a tremendous crappie fishery but also offers some goliath bluegill as well.
The most aggressive fish can often be pulled out of the trees. Keep drilling holes and trying new areas until you contact fish. Often times, once a fish shows up they will come up and crush your bait.
Two Rivers Lake #1 is another great ice fishing destination. Bluegill, crappie and largemouth bass can all be caught through the ice. Look for fish closer to deep water, but also shallower in brush piles and stumps.
Zorinsky Lake can also produce some very good crappie and bluegill fishing. Zorinsky is a deeper lake, but you can find fish out in weed patches in the deeper water. Generally, once you find green weeds there will often be fish with them.
Lawrence Youngman Lake is also a good bluegill and crappie fishery. Once again, finding those weed patches in deeper water are often the key to success. You can also find largemouth bass cruising the shallow weeds as well.
Memphis Lake, the numerous lakes at Fremont Lakes State Park and Louisville Lakes all can produce good fishing and are worth checking out!
Featured Lakes
