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Home › Waters › North Dakota › Heart River
River · Morton County, southwestern North Dakota, the lower river running east below Heart Butte Dam and Lake Tschida to meet the Missouri at Mandan · North Dakota

Heart River Fishing Guides

A southwestern North Dakota prairie river running out of the badlands country below Lake Tschida to join the Missouri at Mandan, with Missouri River fish moving up into the lower reach.

A braided prairie river running past a raw cut bank
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Heart River

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About the Heart River

The Heart River drains the rolling badlands country of southwestern North Dakota and runs east to meet the Missouri River at Mandan, across the water from Bismarck. It is prairie water through and through: muddy, slow, deeply meandering, cut into soft clay banks and carrying a heavy sediment load that gives it the colour of milky coffee most of the year. Heart Butte Dam impounds it upstream as Lake Tschida, and the releases from that reservoir govern how much water the lower river carries.

What makes the lower reach interesting is the Missouri. The confluence at Mandan is open, and fish from the big river move up into the Heart, which means the lower few miles can produce walleye, sauger, channel catfish and the occasional shovelnose sturgeon considerably better than a river of this size would otherwise hold. Northern pike are resident and do well in the slower weedy bends, smallmouth bass hold on what rock and rip-rap there is, and goldeye, drum, carp and black crappie are widespread. Goldeye in particular are abundant and a characteristic fish of this part of the Missouri basin.

The gauge near Mandan reports discharge and stage. Because the river is dam-controlled, summer flows are often modest and steady rather than flashy, which makes it fishable far more reliably than an undammed prairie river would be. Spring snowmelt and reservoir releases bring the high water. Access is reasonable by regional standards, with city parkland at Mandan, state and county land along the valley, and the recreation area at Lake Tschida covering the upstream end. The practical approach is to fish the lower few miles near the confluence in spring, when the Missouri fish are present, and to work the middle river and the reservoir through the summer once they have dropped back.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Posting to Heart River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Heart River cfs

Now: 30.7 cfs, read 6:15 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 06349000, HEART RIVER NEAR MANDAN, ND).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Mandan - the gauge city at the confluence with the Missouri, with parkland and the best access to the lower river.
Missouri River confluence - the junction at Mandan, and the reason the lower reach fishes larger than its size.
Heart Butte Dam - the upstream dam that governs flows on the whole lower river.
Lake Tschida - the reservoir behind the dam, with a recreation area and reliable public access.
Glen Ullin - a town on the river upstream of the reservoir with road access to the middle reaches.
Sweet Briar - a creek and locality west of Mandan giving access to the lower valley.
Harmon Lake - a nearby impoundment north of Mandan, a useful alternative when the river is high and coloured.

Seasons

Spring: the highest water of the year from snowmelt and releases, with walleye and sauger running up from the Missouri and pike spawning in the backwaters.
Summer: steady modest releases keep the river fishable and warm, with channel catfish the most dependable target and goldeye everywhere.
Fall: flows settle and the water clears as much as this river ever does, bringing good pike and walleye fishing near the confluence.
Winter: frozen for months, with ice fishing on Lake Tschida the realistic option and the river itself largely locked up.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Heart River?

As of Nov 2, 6:15 am, the USGS gauge HEART RIVER NEAR MANDAN, ND reads 31 cfs. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Heart River?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Channel Catfish, Common Carp, Freshwater Drum, Goldeye, Northern Pike, Sauger, Shovelnose Sturgeon, Smallmouth Bass, Walleye on the Heart River in North Dakota.

Where can you access the Heart River?

Mandan - the gauge city at the confluence with the Missouri, with parkland and the best access to the lower river. Missouri River confluence - the junction at Mandan, and the reason the lower reach fishes larger than its size. Heart Butte Dam - the upstream dam that governs flows on the whole lower river. Lake Tschida - the reservoir behind the dam, with a recreation area and reliable public access. Glen Ullin - a town on the river upstream of the reservoir with road access to the middle reaches. Sweet Briar - a creek and locality west of Mandan giving access to the lower valley. Harmon Lake -...

When is the best time to fish the Heart River?

Spring: the highest water of the year from snowmelt and releases, with walleye and sauger running up from the Missouri and pike spawning in the backwaters. Summer: steady modest releases keep the river fishable and warm, with channel catfish the most dependable target and goldeye everywhere. Fall: flows settle and the water clears as much as this river ever does, bringing good pike and walleye fishing near the confluence. Winter: frozen for months, with ice fishing on Lake Tschida the realistic option and the river itself largely locked up.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Heart River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the North Dakota agency site: https://gf.nd.gov/fishing