North Dakota fishing rules
License, gear, and the statewide limits NDGF publishes for major species. Water-specific rules replace these numbers. Last checked October 2026.
License
- Who needs one
- Residents and nonresidents 16 and older need a valid fishing license. Residents under 16 may take and possess a limit without a license. A nonresident under 16 may take and possess a limit without a nonresident license only when accompanied by someone who holds a valid fishing license. Each person on a married-couple license may keep an individual limit. The license, on paper or as an electronic image, must be in possession while fishing. Licenses are valid from April 1 through March 31. The 2026–28 regulations run April 1, 2026, through March 31, 2028. North Dakota residents on leave from active duty may fish without a license. Paddlefish need a separate tag in addition to the fishing license.
- Residents
- A person who has actually lived in North Dakota, or maintained a legal residence here, for the past six months may qualify for a resident license, if that person does not still claim residency in another state. Applicants 18 and older must give a North Dakota driver license number or nondriver photo identification number. A waiver can let someone with a bona fide intent to become a resident buy a fishing license at the resident price before six months. Nonresident full-time students at a state, tribal, or private college in North Dakota may qualify for resident nonlottery licenses. The 2026–28 guide lists a resident individual fishing license at $27, a resident married couple at $42, and a resident 65 or older at $10. A resident fishing, hunting, and furbearer certificate is $2. Disabled resident licenses listed in the fee table are $10.
- Nonresidents
- Anyone who does not meet the resident test needs a nonresident license at 16 or older, unless the under-16 accompaniment rule or a student exception applies. The guide lists a nonresident individual license at $68, a married couple at $108, a 10-day license at $58, and a 3-day license at $48. The nonresident certificate is $5. A nonresident paddlefish tag is $35, plus the required fishing license. Free fishing days do not apply to nonresidents.
- Free fishing days
- Residents may fish without a resident fishing license on June 6–7, 2026, December 26–27, 2026, June 5–6, 2027, and December 26–27, 2027. The licensing page says those days do not cover paddlefish. Nonresidents still need a license. Other regulations, including limits, still apply.
Seasons and closures
Open water
The fishing year is April 1 through March 31. All waters are open year-round except posted closures, the area within 100 feet of the bridge between North and South Lake Metigoshe, areas the Corps of Engineers posts at Garrison Dam and the tailrace, and refuge rules. OWLS Pond and the State Fair Pond are closed from sunset to sunrise. Several national wildlife refuges are closed except the designated shore, ice, or boat seasons in the guide. Lake Alice and the southern half of Lake Audubon are ice fishing only.
Spears, salmon, and turtles
Underwater spearfishing is described as legal from April 1 through March 31 only in the waters the guide lists. Salmon snagging, bow, and spearing are limited to sunup and the season dates and places in the salmon section, including Lake Sakakawea. One snapping turtle may be harvested with hook and line between July 1 and November 15. The clam season remains closed. Frogs and turtles may not be taken commercially.
Legal gear
Hooks and barbless rules
The guide does not set a statewide barbless rule. A lure may not contain more than three hooks, and the distance between any hooks on a lure may not exceed 12 inches. A single hook may not have more than three points, barbed or otherwise. Spinners and live-bait rigs count as a lure. Each line may have one or two lures. Hookless dodgers ahead of a lure, or on a downrigger ball, are legal. A device on the rod may set the hook if it does not retrieve the fish. Retrieving devices are illegal.
Rods per angler
Except while ice fishing, each angler may have no more than two poles in the water, each with one line. Four poles are legal while ice fishing. Where open water and ice fishing happen on the same water at the same time, the maximum is four poles, and no more than two of them may be in open water. Poles must be visible and within 150 feet of the angler, and they must be checked at least once an hour. Each angler must take their own fish. Party fishing is illegal. Jugging, noodling, and trotlines are illegal.
Nets
Netting or trapping fish is illegal except for legal live bait and except for a landing net used on a fish already caught on hook and line. A licensed angler may use no more than one minnow trap and one dip net. The trap may not exceed 12 inches in diameter and 30 inches in length, with a throat no larger than 3 inches, and it must be labeled. A dip net may not exceed 24 inches in diameter or 36 inches in depth. Cast nets and other nets are illegal. A gaff may be used to land a hook-and-line fish except sturgeon, paddlefish, muskellunge, and any species in a water with a size limit. A gaffed fish may not be released.
Snagging
A foul-hooked or snagged fish is one hooked anywhere from behind the gill covers to the tail. If a multiple-hook lure has at least one hook embedded from the gill covers forward, the fish is not foul-hooked. Foul-hooked fish must be returned immediately, and possessing them is illegal. Attempting to snag fish is illegal. The exception is the salmon snagging season, and paddlefish snagging under the paddlefish rules. For 2026–28, chinook salmon may again be harvested by snagging, and also by bow and spear during that snagging season. Only one snag hook per line or lure is legal. Possessing a snagging pole counts as one of the hook-and-line poles. Each snagger must cast, hook, and retrieve their own fish.
Spearing and bow
Game fish may not be taken with a bow or spear except as the guide lists. Darkhouse spear and bow fishing no longer requires a registration. Northern pike and nongame fish are the only legal species for that method, and the ice hole is not limited to 10 inches while the angler is actively spearing. Channel catfish may be taken by bow or spear on lakes Sakakawea and Oahe and the Missouri River as the exception states. Underwater spearfishing uses a rubber-band or pneumatic spear gun with the spear on a lanyard no longer than 20 feet, only in the waters the guide opens, and not within 150 feet of another person. Salmon may be taken by bow or spear during the salmon snagging season, from sunup to the hours printed in that section, in Lake Sakakawea and the listed river reaches. Crossbows are prohibited except under a director’s permit for a permanent disability. Bow arrows used for fish must be attached by a line and use a harpoon-style or wire-barbed point.
Bait and live transport
Legal live baitfish are fathead minnows, creek chubs, and sticklebacks. White suckers were added for 2026–28 on the Missouri River system, Lake Audubon, Devils Lake, and Stump Lake, and they are also legal on the Red and Bois de Sioux rivers. Live rainbow smelt may be used only on the Missouri River system, and only if captured there with a dip net, minnow trap, or by hand. All legal live aquatic bait must have been purchased or trapped in North Dakota. Anglers may not import live baitfish, amphibians, or leeches. No more than 150 legal live baitfish may be possessed. The bait container may not be larger than 5 gallons, except the Class I aquatic-nuisance waters must be drained before leaving, including bait water. Game fish and their parts may not be used as bait except yellow perch eyes and trout and salmon eggs. Dead nongame fish may be used. No live fish, eggs, or other aquatic organisms may be stocked or transported except legal bait and the pet-trade exception. No fish species may be transported in water away from the water where it was caught. Ice may be used in a cooler. Chumming and other attractants not attached to a lure are illegal. Decoys for darkhouse spearing and bowfishing are excluded from that ban.
Bag and size limits
These are the statewide or default limits. A named lake, river, or marine area can replace every figure below.
Walleye, sauger, and northern pike
The statewide daily limit for walleye, sauger, and saugeye in combination is 5, and the possession limit is 10. Zander count in that combination in Spiritwood and Alkali lakes. Northern pike are 5 a day and 10 in possession. On the Red and Bois de Sioux rivers the exception is 3 northern pike a day and 3 in possession, and 3 walleye, sauger, or saugeye a day and 3 in possession. There is no statewide walleye minimum. Lake Elsie in Richland County has a 14-inch minimum for walleye and sauger. The daily limit runs midnight to midnight. An angler may not have more than a daily limit while on the water, on the ice, or actively fishing. High-grading is illegal: a fish held on a stringer or in a livewell may not be released, except in an approved live-release tournament.
Bass, trout, and salmon
Largemouth and smallmouth bass in combination are 5 a day and 10 in possession. Brown, cutthroat, lake, rainbow, and tiger trout in combination are 3 a day and 6 in possession. Salmon are 5 a day and 10 in possession. Muskellunge, pure or hybrid, are 1 a day and 1 in possession, and it is illegal to take or possess a muskellunge under 48 inches anywhere in the state.
Catfish and panfish
Channel catfish are 5 a day and 5 in possession east of ND Highway 1, and 20 a day and 40 in possession west of the highway. On the Red and Bois de Sioux rivers the catfish limit is 5 regardless of how many state or provincial licenses the angler holds. East of Highway 1, including those rivers, it is illegal to take or possess more than one channel catfish greater than 24 inches. White bass were raised for 2026–28 to 30 a day and 60 in possession. Bluegill are 10 and 20, crappie 10 and 20, yellow perch 20 and 40, and burbot 10 and 20. Nongame fish other than legal live baitfish have no limit.
Paddlefish, sturgeon, and possession
Paddlefish may be taken only under the paddlefish rules and with a tag. Pallid, shovelnose, and lake sturgeon must be released immediately and may not be possessed or transported. The possession limit is the maximum that may be held during a fishing trip of more than one day. The storage limit at a permanent residence is unlimited. Gifted fish count against the donor’s daily limit and must be labeled. Two fillets count as one fish. Where a size limit applies, no more than gills, entrails, and scales may be removed while on the water. Channel catfish east of Highway 1 must keep the head, fillets, and tail attached until the fish are at the license holder’s residence.