10 year anniversery trip to Roy Lake

[curtisce]

What started as a Memoerial weekend trip in 2013 has morphed into a 2 week marathon. we still camp at Roy Lake state Park.We literall have the 40 space campground to ourselves until about Thursday before the weekend. It fills with campers and boats then quickly emptys on Sunday afternoon. We are there with our tents, we hav e added a fridge along the way and this year a deep fryer. My brother and I are there the whole time and some of his friends join us through the trip. Our first trip we fished only on roy. We now fish about 10 diffrerent lakes which are within a half hour . 

      We started our trip on a lake along the way up form my brothers house in Salem SD. we did good on it for wllayes before. This year the wind overpowered us. We decided to head to the small town get a room and wait till evening. The "motel" had an office but no one was there. There was a nuber to call but no answer. by the looks of the exterior it would have rivaled @BilletHead fish camp in south Texas. We headed to Roy and set up camp then did some evening bass fishing. these glacial lakes fill if local precipitation. This year SD has been dry except for this region which helps the LM  fishing. Each lake has different makeup of fish. Some are better SM others LM or walleye. They all seem to have lots of small pike and big ones too. Our first trip to the best SM  lake yielded two 5# smallies and several in the 2.5- 3.5# class though numbers weren't as good as prior years. We returned there the following Saturday. Usually there will be 3 to 5 rigs at the put in. This year we arrived to find 20+ rigs. Seems a local tourney was going on. The SM are on rocks during the spawn and easy to find if you know the lake so our chances  were limited since we arrived 2 hours after the tourney started. The top 2 boats both had 25+ bags of 5 SM so that tells you what kind of fish are in this lake. 

       We had some intense 30+ mph winds mostly at night. My tent was staked and the top was secured to the tree or it would not have survived. we would curse the winds one day and the next it would be dead still. When these lakes filled back in the 80's they covered  a lot of private land and public roads. Some of the roads got built up with rock creating a road grade. You can fish off the grades on these lakes and one has an abundant walleye population so after dineer and a few drinks we would hit the grade for the evening. Usually in less than 2 hours we could get our 4 walleyes each and a few trophies. we had 3 over 27" this year, the largest 29". frequent  fish frys kept our posseesion limits legal.The LM this year were very strong in numbers and average size.No monsters landed but did have a few 5+ # on the line. Really pretty geen fish the were thick and hard fighting. The pike are plentiful but  they were really hard on my terminal tackle. You would feel a tic on the line and that it, GONE.Flukes, ned rigs, swimbait ,and spinnerbaits.I think the smaller ones did it more the the larger ones. Fished our last morning on Roy did well on the rocks for smallies, then the wind got abit stronger. We headed back into the bays and found some nice LM.  Went in about noon and packed up camp and headed home. nice way to end it

[BilletHead]

13 minutes ago, curtisce said:

What started as a Memoerial weekend trip in 2013 has morphed into a 2 week marathon. we still camp at Roy Lake state Park.We literall have the 40 space campground to ourselves until about Thursday before the weekend. It fills with campers and boats then quickly emptys on Sunday afternoon. We are there with our tents, we hav e added a fridge along the way and this year a deep fryer. My brother and I are there the whole time and some of his friends join us through the trip. Our first trip we fished only on roy. We now fish about 10 diffrerent lakes which are within a half hour . 

      We started our trip on a lake along the way up form my brothers house in Salem SD. we did good on it for wllayes before. This year the wind overpowered us. We decided to head to the small town get a room and wait till evening. The "motel" had an office but no one was there. There was a nuber to call but no answer. by the looks of the exterior it would have rivaled @BilletHead fish camp in south Texas. We headed to Roy and set up camp then did some evening bass fishing. these glacial lakes fill if local precipitation. This year SD has been dry except for this region which helps the LM  fishing. Each lake has different makeup of fish. Some are better SM others LM or walleye. They all seem to have lots of small pike and big ones too. Our first trip to the best SM  lake yielded two 5# smallies and several in the 2.5- 3.5# class though numbers weren't as good as prior years. We returned there the following Saturday. Usually there will be 3 to 5 rigs at the put in. This year we arrived to find 20+ rigs. Seems a local tourney was going on. The SM are on rocks during the spawn and easy to find if you know the lake so our chances  were limited since we arrived 2 hours after the tourney started. The top 2 boats both had 25+ bags of 5 SM so that tells you what kind of fish are in this lake. 

       We had some intense 30+ mph winds mostly at night. My tent was staked and the top was secured to the tree or it would not have survived. we would curse the winds one day and the next it would be dead still. When these lakes filled back in the 80's they covered  a lot of private land and public roads. Some of the roads got built up with rock creating a road grade. You can fish off the grades on these lakes and one has an abundant walleye population so after dineer and a few drinks we would hit the grade for the evening. Usually in less than 2 hours we could get our 4 walleyes each and a few trophies. we had 3 over 27" this year, the largest 29". frequent  fish frys kept our posseesion limits legal.The LM this year were very strong in numbers and average size.No monsters landed but did have a few 5+ # on the line. Really pretty geen fish the were thick and hard fighting. The pike are plentiful but  they were really hard on my terminal tackle. You would feel a tic on the line and that it, GONE.Flukes, ned rigs, swimbait ,and spinnerbaits.I think the smaller ones did it more the the larger ones. Fished our last morning on Roy did well on the rocks for smallies, then the wind got abit stronger. We headed back into the bays and found some nice LM.  Went in about noon and packed up camp and headed home. nice way to end it

                      Not only did I get updates by text of this trip here I am again looking at all these nice fish! What a deal and thank you Curt for sharing. Aren't those fish camp motels interesting? 🤪

[curtisce]

4 hours ago, BilletHead said:

                      Not only did I get updates by text of this trip here I am again looking at all these nice fish! What a deal and thank you Curt for sharing. Aren't those fish camp motels interesting? 🤪

This palce had tarps over parts of the roof. was in extreme disrepair but had a for sale sign up. The other place we found in town were some old mobile homes. The guy wanted $65 / person for the night. You would have had to pay me to stay there.Sometimes your own tent ain't that bad

[BilletHead]

4 hours ago, curtisce said:

This palce had tarps over parts of the roof. was in extreme disrepair but had a for sale sign up. The other place we found in town were some old mobile homes. The guy wanted $65 / person for the night. You would have had to pay me to stay there.Sometimes your own tent ain't that bad

            You do know if you took my conventional tackle hybrid fishing bag and had it in the tent with you it wouldn't of went anywhere. 😁

[jdmidwest]

Looks like the fish eat well, surprised they took a bait with swollen bellies like that.

[Quillback]

Those are some quality fish.  I'm surprised the walleye fishermen from Minnesota aren't all over it.  10 years ago, when I went pheasant hunting in SD,  I remember seeing those recently flooded lakes by the highway,  flooded barns out in the lake, barb wire fences in the water, and so on.  Didn't see many people fishing them either.  If a person could handle the nasty winters and the wind blowing all the time, SD would not be a bad place to live for an outdoorsman.

[Johnsfolly]

1 hour ago, Quillback said:

If a person could handle the nasty winters and the wind blowing all the time, SD would not be a bad place to live for an outdoorsman.

That is definitely a BIG IF....

I had a friend in PA that was independently wealthy. He stayed in the Poconos during the spring and summer and the Virgin islands in the winter. That type of person could really benefit from a part time home in SD.

[Quillback]

14 minutes ago, Johnsfolly said:

That is definitely a BIG IF....

I had a friend in PA that was independently wealthy. He stayed in the Poconos during the spring and summer and the Virgin islands in the winter. That type of person could really benefit from a part time home in SD.

If I had Johnny Morris money I would definitely have a 1,000 acres of SD land for pheasant hunting.  I'd have a nice lodge and a boat stored there too for fishing.  

[curtisce]

On 6/8/2022 at 6:22 AM, Quillback said:

Those are some quality fish.  I'm surprised the walleye fishermen from Minnesota aren't all over it.  10 years ago, when I went pheasant hunting in SD,  I remember seeing those recently flooded lakes by the highway,  flooded barns out in the lake, barb wire fences in the water, and so on.  Didn't see many people fishing them either.  If a person could handle the nasty winters and the wind blowing all the time, SD would not be a bad place to live for an outdoorsman.

Definitely a big if. If you were to go there is early May  I would bet you the weather would keep you off the water 3or4 days of the week. By late May when we were there we had one day it blew 30+ for 24 hours. That said it is  a great place for hunting and fishing. I didn't mention but part of the fun of this place is seeing all the  waterfowl, they are in their spring blumage. It's hilarious watching 2 greenheads chasing a hen all over the sky.