north gate dam bluegills

carsronnie

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used to catch bluegill by the hundreds the last 5 years. 2 trips this year, none! we never kept more than what we ate over the weekend. what happened?
 


garden

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There were a couple hundred cormorants or more there last summer. Don't know what impact they had, but not positive for sure.
 

Smuscha

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Everyone and their brother taking limits out of there every other day is what happened. Small lake, can’t take that kind of pressure.
 


guywhofishes

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Everyone and their brother taking limits out of there every other day is what happened. Small lake, can’t take that kind of pressure.

You'd think that wouldn't ya?

But Brewer near Fargo takes a continuous pounding and keeps on pumping out bluegills. (125 acres vs Northgate's 158 acres)
 

Dirty

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Brewer Lake? Hadn’t heard about it until now but sounds like it’s about time for me to start calling my friends from out east so we can arrange a trip! Yippee! I just keep the cheeks from my bluegills.
 

guywhofishes

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Brewer Lake? Hadn’t heard about it until now but sounds like it’s about time for me to start calling my friends from out east so we can arrange a trip! Yippee! I just keep the cheeks from my bluegills.

Do your worst!

Brewer has sustained continuous abuse for decades. It's also a full blown Hillbilly Riviera - you and your band of gypsies will fit right in.

- - - Updated - - -

How deep does it get there? Winter kill?
https://gf.nd.gov/gnf/maps/fishing/lakecontours/northgate2020.pdf
 

Dirty

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Naw, I was kidding. No way would I associate with anyone who lives east of Bismarck.

In all seriousness, I used to fish Northgate for trout mostly but caught some monster bluegills. That lake has winter killed several times. Same with Crown Butte…another lake that always seemed to winter kill about the time the bluegills hit about a pound and the trout got really nice. I used to catch some monster bluegills on flies at McDowell also. That lake would routinely crap out too and the reset button had to be hit. Summer kill can be as big of an issue as winter kill in some of these small bodies of water.
 
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AR-15

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It's funny there is any fish in Northgate with all farm fertilizer running it every spring and even this last rain we had a couple of weeks ago filled it up with runoff from the fields, to me it's totally polluted, some of the Bluegills last year had worms in them
 

johnr

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It's funny there is any fish in Northgate with all farm fertilizer running it every spring and even this last rain we had a couple of weeks ago filled it up with runoff from the fields, to me it's totally polluted, some of the Bluegills last year had worms in them
Does it also make their filets squishy?
 

R@nger_BO@TS

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Back like 6 years ago on North Gate we had a day we’re we caught like 60 16-18 inch walleye and it was insane but never again did we have any luck for walleye out their. No clue why we got into them like that and never again but haven’t fished it in 4 years.
 


AR-15

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My boy and the grandkids caught some nice Bluegills back in Sept.
 

snow

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Everyone and their brother taking limits out of there every other day is what happened. Small lake, can’t take that kind of pressure.
I gotta agree,years back we fished gills and jumbo perch on small alkali lakes in valentine Nebraska, gills 12" p l us,word spread via outdoor writers, last trip to the Sandhill refuge in hopes of a few monter gills....nothing,got licensed check by a usfw agent,local guy,he said once word got out these small lakes were invaded by fisher ppl by the 100's,both summer and winter 7 days/week, nail in coffin.
 

Maddog

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One step closer to the end.
The Gazeteer closely followed by the internet has been the downfall of many a hunting and fishing hotspot (s)

And last but not least, Onyx
 
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Vollmer

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Naw, I was kidding. No way would I associate with anyone who lives east of Bismarck.

In all seriousness, I used to fish Northgate for trout mostly but caught some monster bluegills. That lake has winter killed several times. Same with Crown Butte…another lake that always seemed to winter kill about the time the bluegills hit about a pound and the trout got really nice. I used to catch some monster bluegills on flies at McDowell also. That lake would routinely crap out too and the reset button had to be hit. Summer kill can be as big of an issue as winter kill in some of these small bodies of water.
We had fun catching trout up there a couple of years ago.
 

VDAWG

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Naw, I was kidding. No way would I associate with anyone who lives east of Bismarck.

In all seriousness, I used to fish Northgate for trout mostly but caught some monster bluegills. That lake has winter killed several times. Same with Crown Butte…another lake that always seemed to winter kill about the time the bluegills hit about a pound and the trout got really nice. I used to catch some monster bluegills on flies at McDowell also. That lake would routinely crap out too and the reset button had to be hit. Summer kill can be as big of an issue as winter kill in some of these small bodies of water.
Back in my youth about 25 years ago, I caught some monster bluegills at McDowell.
 


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