And it's one of the reasons that many anglers are taking a two-pronged approach, going after perch during the middle part of the day, but chasing walleyes at morning and evening. The dawn and dusk hours usually see the main bite occurring, not only in Devils Lake but also in many other Great Plains waters.

The NDGFD stocked 1.3 million perch into Devils Lake last summer -- all North Dakota "natives," too, raised in North Dakota in the Valley City Fish Hatchery and at Garrison Dam Fish Hatchery.

The Devils Lake walleye population has been doing very well, with natural reproduction rolling along splendidly. Fishing success has been high, and this winter is excellent for going after the 'eyes in the cold water.

The test netting done by the NDGFD over the past year has turned up substantial numbers of walleyes of appropriately catchable size. "Many of those are between 12 and 20 inches," said Hiltner. "The 20-inchers are about 3 pounds. There is a lot of the 1 1/2- and 2-pounders -- nice fish."

And just this past summer, the test gill nettings turned up the highest numbers of walleyes in Devils Lake since 1992. "The last two summers, the walleye fishing has been excellent," Hiltner noted. "It slows down in the winter, but that is to be expected."

With the lake level rising over the last decade, more structure has become available for anglers to fish. Some of the additions were certainly unintended, such as flooded roads, culverts and ditches. Vegetation inundated by rising waters often makes for some wonderful fishing. Baitfish and far smaller organisms congregate there to escape the bigger prey fish, and walleyes and perch and other species move in to take advantage. Even in the cold of winter, the cool-water fish are hungry, and looking for a fruitful place to dine; anglers are always close behind.

"In winter they (anglers) look for structure if they can find it," said Hiltner. "We have a lot of standing trees in the lakes."

Anglers fish the edge of the trees, or sunken roadbeds; there's structure out there. Of course, walleyes aren't limited to those types alone -- they don't read the how-to books -- but those are good places to start.

The one key that everyone concentrates on is time of day. Walleyes really seem to like eating on a schedule, and the peak of the feeding takes place in early morning and late evening.

"'Walleye:30' is what they call it," said Hiltner. "The twilight periods, as a general rule, are when they bite. I've been targeting walleyes more in the last couple of years just because the perch are more difficult. I like to eat 15-inch winter walleyes."