Sauger

Where they live: Large rivers and a short list of big northern lakes. Deeper and darker than the walleye speech you rehearsed in the truck.

When folks chase them: Open water with a jig or a live-bait rig near the bottom. Through the ice, Lake of the Woods is the room the DNR names.

Sauger are the walleye’s cousin. Not the one who brings bars to the reunion. The one who knows which dam the family is actually standing under.

I have held one up and called it a walleye until the dorsal fin embarrassed me, the way you call a person the wrong name at a fish fry in Baudette and then have to live in the truck with it. Spots in the top fin. No dark blotch at the back of that fin. No white tip on the bottom of the tail. The DNR’s walleye biology page is the apology card. (Minnesota DNR — walleye biology)

They are smaller and more slender than a walleye and seldom go past 3 pounds. They also see better in the dark and in turbid water, which is why they live where they live. That is not a failed walleye. That is a fish built for the river.

What to throw

The DNR’s own profile says the tackle and methods people use for walleyes are appropriate, then tells you to change the address. Saugers often sit deeper and darker. Through the open-water season, live-bait rigs and jigs tipped with minnows, fished at or near the bottom, are the solid choices they name. (Minnesota Conservation Volunteer — sauger)

• Jig and minnow. The same civic religion as a walleye day, fished closer to the floor. Northland’s Fire-Ball is the jig we can actually point at.
• Live-bait rig. A Lindy-style crawler harness is the patient version already on our walleye tray. The DNR’s phrase is a live-bait rig near the bottom. We are not drawing a new rig on a napkin.
• A crank with a job. Shad Rap and the Original Floater live in that same tray for the days you are covering water. They are not a secret sauger color we made up.

Early spring, the profile says look below Mississippi River dams while the fish try to move for the spawn. In summer it names Lake Pepin. The cards are in the boat kit. The longer sermon is Minnesota walleye classics.

Rod & reel

If the DNR says walleye tackle is the right idea, the stick is the one Minnesota boats already argue about for jigs and live-bait rigs. Spinning, a fast tip, and the humility to set the hook when the fish is actually there.

• Length: 6’6”–7’6” spinning
• Power / action: ML–M, Fast or X-Fast
• Reel: Mid-size spinning
• Line: 6–10 lb mono, or 10–15 braid with a fluoro leader

The blanks we can point at are in the boat kit and Walleye spinning & jigging setups.

Where in Minnesota

Distribution is more limited than walleye. The biology page puts them in Lake St. Croix, the Minnesota River, the Mississippi, and the Mississippi below the Twin Cities, and calls them common in Lake of the Woods, Rainy Lake, and Lake Kabetogama. (Minnesota DNR — walleye biology)

On this site, the rooms that already name them are Lake of the Woods, Lake Pepin, and Lake Kabetogama. The profile also calls Rainy and Lac la Croix sauger lakes. We have a Rainy Lake page. Lac la Croix does not have one here, so we are not going to pretend it does.

Seasons, including the ice

Open water is the jig-and-rig conversation above. For ice, the DNR profile does not hem and haw. It says there may be no better place in Minnesota to catch saugers through the ice than Lake of the Woods, where a mixed bag with walleye is the normal day and the bite can last all day. The offerings it names are live minnows or bright, shiny jigging spoons, down in that bog-stained water. (Minnesota Conservation Volunteer — sauger)

We can point at a jig. We cannot point at a bright jigging spoon, because that listing is not on our shelf. Use a minnow on the jig we do have, and do not let a gas-station story sell you a spoon we never linked.

The rules

Sauger ride with the inland rulebook, and border water is its own chapter. Read the year you are actually standing in.

• Fishing seasons
• Fishing regulations
• Inland seasons and limits
• Special regulations, by water