May has been one heck of a month. Spent a week up in the SNF fishing, with a stop to fly-fish the Baptism at Tettegouche, and a few days at a crappie hole near Fifty Lakes... then this last weekend, we headed out to western North Dakota to do some canoeing in the heart of the Badlands.

I've been trying to run this river since 2005, and even though semi-low flow conditions blocked our attempt at the entire 110-mile stretch between the national park units, it still made for a spectacular trip.

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Very nice report Akula.  I really enjoyed the pictures .  Very desolute,  yet beautiful , land.  Thanks for sharing.

Great report!  Looks like a great way to spend a couple days...

 ANY trout in that river ;)
Very nice report!

I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. The weather has been uncooperative for the last few weeks, but it's springtime, so I guess it is what it is.

st, no trout that I'm aware of, but we did scare up some carp-looking things... which came as a surprise to me, because I thought the Little Missouri was too shallow and silty for fish to live in. According to the ND Game and Fish website, the river does have catfish and sauger.

Perhaps we'll give it another run next spring, if we can manage to get there during higher flow. April is always a good bet for getting out into the Badlands... though given a choice, I'd still rather be out in the north country. More tree cover, clear waters, and less rattlesnakes...

I'm not surprised about the catfish, they seem too be able too survive just about anywhere.
The sauger is a bit of a mystery, being close cousins of the walleye, I would think shallow and silty wouldn't be for them?
Maybe there is decent enough holes in spots to hold the catfish/sauger when the temps heat up?

No idea. For most of the trip, the water was withing a paddle blade or two for depth, with gravel bars all over the place, but I suppose that doesn't mean that such holes can't exist. The two fish that swam by the canoes, and the dead one we found along the banks, didn't look like either species to me. I should have taken a picture... it's also possible that the ND GF Dept. surveyed the river where it meets the Missouri, in which case finding cats and sauger wouldn't be too surprising.

There was a guy that looked like he was fishing near the bridge in Medora, but he was upstream and we were in a hurry, so we didn't get the chance to inquire. I'll see if any of the other guys snapped a pic of the dead one...

Great report Akula!

I'll be driving through that area on business within the next couple weeks.  I'll be sure to enjoy recollections of your report as I do.

Note to selves...

Many that seek solitude in the Dakotas seek out the Badlands in both ND and SD, as the Black Hills in SD has become more and more of a tourist trap...type attraction... unless you know the secret spots in the Hills.  Badlands...Highly recomended.  Bring your boots. ;)

Saw the Fargo flood first hand as well.  Could have called it the Dakota Flood.  I could see clearly how this area was a massive lake once, just a few short weeks ago now.  Didn't see the Dakotan's cry'n for hand-outs.  Thousands of volunteers and over a million sand bags.

k

Kawishiway wrote on May 28^th, 2009 at 10:47am:

Note to selves... Many that seek solitude in the Dakotas seek out the Badlands in both ND and SD, as the Black Hills in SD has become more and more of a tourist trap...type attraction... unless you know the secret spots in the Hills.  Badlands...Highly recomended.  Bring your boots. ;)

Glad you enjoyed the report. It seems to me that far less people come to ND's badlands, most preferring the sharper, more extreme topography of the badlands in SD. Friends of mine back home in MSP often say, "I didn't know ND had badlands." Keeps out the riff-raff  :D



Quote:

Saw the Fargo flood first hand as well.  Could have called it the Dakota Flood.  I could see clearly how this area was a massive lake once, just a few short weeks ago now. k

I attached a picture I took a few weeks ago, looking down into the Red River Valley from the Pembina Escarpment, an area of N-S trending topographic relief which marks the Valley's western edge. The picture was taken along a road leading to Mountain, ND, perhaps the most ironic town name in the eastern part of the state. This escarpment wasn't the edge of Lake Agassiz, but it was cut out by the pre-Agassiz 'Red' river as it meandered through the valley below. But it's still easy to see that you're looking down into a vast lake bed / flood plain.

It's also not hard to imagine why so much land gets covered when the Red River rises in the spring. North of Grand Forks just over a month ago, the river was seven miles wide. As of right now, it's back to its normal width of less than 100 yards.

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Akula wrote on May 26^th, 2009 at 1:49am:

, and a few days at a crappie hole near Fifty Lakes... [/url]

Akula,

Where abouts are you located? I was up at the Fifty Lakes Campground last weekend helping my brother put a shed up. He has a camper there all year & I spend several weekends up there... its only 25 minutes from my house. Always looking for people to go paddling with.

Thanks for the report, looks like a nice scenic river. I spent some time in the Black Hills last summer.

Troy

I was at my friend's grandparents' place, on (east) Fox Lake. Just a short drive from Fifty Lakes, right by that Golden Eagle golf course. We're usually only there a few times per year, always for the rifle opener in November and 1-2 times during the summer for fishing and to help his grandparents around the house.

There's been some talk about heading back there for a weekend sometime soon, I'll definitely let you know what our plans are. It'd be great to meet up and do some exploring, it's really nice country down there.

Last time I was in Medora, I watched kids catching Bullheads off a local bridge.  I was surprised by how much gravel was in your pics.  Nice job!

Akula wrote on May 28^th, 2009 at 10:49pm:

I was at my friend's grandparents' place, on (east) Fox Lake. Just a short drive from Fifty Lakes, right by that Golden Eagle golf course. We're usually only there a few times per year, always for the rifle opener in November and 1-2 times during the summer for fishing and to help his grandparents around the house. There's been some talk about heading back there for a weekend sometime soon, I'll definitely let you know what our plans are. It'd be great to meet up and do some exploring, it's really nice country down there.

Yeah, give me a PM when you will be around... we were just out on Kego on Sunday & caught 40 crappies in an hour.  ;D We also ride ATV's all over that area... lots of trails.

Troy