Originally Posted By tornadochaser:
Retro, you'd probably be best served booking a half or whole day trip with one of the many reputable guides that fishes Oahe and picking their brain as to how to get set up for fishing the river.

Here's a typical annual progression of fishing methods for walleye on the river:

Ice-out:  from shore, most use "crappie rigs" or some sort of slip sinker live bait rig, casting it out and letting it sit.  From boat, most guys are marking fish on their electronics and vertical jigging a jig/minnow over those fish.  Some will pull crankbaits.

Pre-spawn:  as the water warms into the 40's, the males start lurking daily along the shoreline rock riprap or on gravel points/bars.  This is the best time of year to be a shore fisherman on the missouri river.  We throw one line out set up with a crappie rig and the other line we are casting Rapala original floaters parallel to the rock shorelines.  Especially at dusk and just after dark, the females will move up to lay their eggs.  This is the time of year you can catch dozens of fish each evening from shore and get a shot at big females for the catch/photo/release.

Post spawn:  You can still find males hanging around the rocks hoping for late females to show up, as well as catch females that have recovered from the spawn and are putting weight back on.  As the fish finish the spawn they start to slide off shore based structure to shallow flats adjacent to deeper water.

Late spring early summer, summer into fall:  this is when you can catch fish running numerous methods; shallow or deep.  Rigging live bait, whether it's lindy rigs, spinners, slow death, etc. are what most do, many switch to crankbaits/leadcore, and some still vertical jig, whether it's jig/plastic, jig/minnow, rapala jigging/rippin raps, etc.  Fish can still be had from shore, but it's usually a smaller bite window and you're dealing with more undesirable fish like white bass and drum.  We'll often drive around for 45 minutes with the boat doing nothing but watching the electronics and only start fishing when we are graphing a school of fish.

Fall:  Cast and blast.  Hunt pheasants during the day and hit the fast water below the dams at dark.  Casting crankbaits along the rocks as the eyes move up to feed.  Walleyes feed heavy in the fall putting on weight for winter.

Winter:  Where open water is still accessible by boat, slow vertical jigging is the ticket.  Ice fishing is very good when there is stable ice conditions.

While the river is a phenomenal walleye factory, don't limit yourself to just the river when we have so many good lakes in eastern SD as well.  Typically, in the spring, the river warms up faster, which means that spring prespawn shore bite starts sooner than it does over here on the east side.  We'll drive out and fish numerous nights on the river from shore, then as things warm up over here, get another week or two of excellent shore/wader fishing pitching jig/minnow at dark for shallow walleyes.  Spring wader fishing in SD is somewhat of a holiday for a lot of guys.  Often on lakes like Thompson, Poinsett, Sinai, etc, you'll have 15-20 guys all standing in waist deep water spread out up and down the shoreline from various access points.  Not uncommon for 10-15 of those 20 guys to limit with 4 walleyes in short order.  This is the time of year where even marginal walleye lakes produce good bites because the shoreline rock/rubble/gravel concentrates the fish to areas that just happen to be accessible for a shore fisherman.

Originally Posted By tornadochaser:
Retro, you'd probably be best served booking a half or whole day trip with one of the many reputable guides that fishes Oahe and picking their brain as to how to get set up for fishing the river.

Here's a typical annual progression of fishing methods for walleye on the river:

Ice-out:  from shore, most use "crappie rigs" or some sort of slip sinker live bait rig, casting it out and letting it sit.  From boat, most guys are marking fish on their electronics and vertical jigging a jig/minnow over those fish.  Some will pull crankbaits.

Pre-spawn:  as the water warms into the 40's, the males start lurking daily along the shoreline rock riprap or on gravel points/bars.  This is the best time of year to be a shore fisherman on the missouri river.  We throw one line out set up with a crappie rig and the other line we are casting Rapala original floaters parallel to the rock shorelines.  Especially at dusk and just after dark, the females will move up to lay their eggs.  This is the time of year you can catch dozens of fish each evening from shore and get a shot at big females for the catch/photo/release.

Post spawn:  You can still find males hanging around the rocks hoping for late females to show up, as well as catch females that have recovered from the spawn and are putting weight back on.  As the fish finish the spawn they start to slide off shore based structure to shallow flats adjacent to deeper water.

Late spring early summer, summer into fall:  this is when you can catch fish running numerous methods; shallow or deep.  Rigging live bait, whether it's lindy rigs, spinners, slow death, etc. are what most do, many switch to crankbaits/leadcore, and some still vertical jig, whether it's jig/plastic, jig/minnow, rapala jigging/rippin raps, etc.  Fish can still be had from shore, but it's usually a smaller bite window and you're dealing with more undesirable fish like white bass and drum.  We'll often drive around for 45 minutes with the boat doing nothing but watching the electronics and only start fishing when we are graphing a school of fish.

Fall:  Cast and blast.  Hunt pheasants during the day and hit the fast water below the dams at dark.  Casting crankbaits along the rocks as the eyes move up to feed.  Walleyes feed heavy in the fall putting on weight for winter.

Winter:  Where open water is still accessible by boat, slow vertical jigging is the ticket.  Ice fishing is very good when there is stable ice conditions.

While the river is a phenomenal walleye factory, don't limit yourself to just the river when we have so many good lakes in eastern SD as well.  Typically, in the spring, the river warms up faster, which means that spring prespawn shore bite starts sooner than it does over here on the east side.