Best fishing lakes, tips and maps of lakes

Glacial lakes in South Dakota are some of the best fishing lakes to be found anywhere. A while back I asked all the guys on the fishing forum what the best fishing lakes in Eastern South Dakota were.

The responses and tips were varied but the top three that were mentioned were Lake Kampeska, Bitter Lake and Waubay Lake. I had purposely asked them to leave out Lake Thompson but in my opinion it's one of the better lakes in the Eastern half of the state. Of course I may be a bit biased as I lived on it for 6 years.



Big Stone lake and Lake Traverse on the MN, SD border are very good as are Lake Sharpe and the Oahe Reservoir plus Lewis and Clark lake with those three on the Missouri river.

The glacial lakes in South Dakota are like glacial lakes in Minnesota. Mostly fairly shallow and bowl shaped. They don't call it lake country South Dakota style for nothing. The fishing is good and the fish are a good size in most of the lakes that follow.

Some of these lakes are best in the winter, some lakes in the spring and the rest in the summer or fall. Lake Thompson seems to be good most of the time as does Bitter, Kampeska, Big Stone, Traverse and the Missouri river impoundments.

So here, in no particular order, are what the group on the forum thinks are the best fishing lakes. Day County lakes, Bitter, Waubay, Enemy Swim and Lynn lakes.

Kingsbury County Lakes are Lake Thompson, Lake Albert

Codington County Lakes include Lake Kampeska, Pelican and Punished Woman lakes.

Hamlin County Lakes are Poinsett, Lake Mary and lake Norden.

Brookings County has but one lake making the list and it's Lake Sinai

Lake County came in with two including Lake Madison and Lake Herman.

McCook County has Lake Vermillion. Clark County Lakes include Dry Lake #2 by Willow lake and Antelope lake.

Marshall County - Clear lake near Roy and Roy Lake.

You can get Lewis and Clark lake reports and reports on most other lakes in the glacial lakes region by searching for the forums or lake names. There are quite a few fishing report forums out there if you look. Some provide better fishing information than others do.

Some of the forum are well run and some are for friends to bitch about other people and other topics besides fishing. Feuding and pumping up egos aren't real fishing forums. Check the bait shop forums for the best information about current conditions and where the fishing is best.

Be aware that lake properties in South Dakota can be hard to find and some of them are very over priced because there isn't that much buildup around most of the lakes.

Sure you can get a lake cabin in South Dakota but it's almost as cheap to buy the land and build yourself a new fishing or lake cabin.

Roy lake and waubay both seem to have a good market of south dakota lake lots for sale but like the fishing than can change in a few minutes. Both are great fishing lakes and that may be the reason for the high demand.

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For some of the best maps in the area go check out Mikes Maps and you'll find lake maps of some of the glacial lakes in SD.

Oops, almost forgot, Best fishing lakes for kids was another question I asked and the lakes were the following. Dudley, Ketchum, Cochrane, Louise and Wilmarth lakes. They can all be found at the counties sections of the GPS coordinates.