How was your Bass Opener?

[RuddyDuck]

Kinda quiet on here. So how did everyones MN opener go?

I saw alot of bass, but didn't catch alot. Tried several lakes, but only got a few at each one. One lake was just loaded with 6 inchers, guess there should be plenty there in a few years! Biggest one I could muster for the day was an 18 incher on a KVD 2.5.

[M1dwestF1sh]

I was waitin for somebody to ask. I guess I got pretty lucky and had a great opener. Caught between 20-30 smallies on the big pond saturday. Most in the 4-5lb range. The waves were rough but the fish made up for it. Sunday I got out for a couple hours around here and got quiet a few of largemouth on a jerkbait and football jig. Most around 17".

[Search Function]

It was bass catch & release opener, not the Bass Opener. Bass season is still closed in most of the state; It's just that we can fish for them intentionally now in all of it.

I know you know that, but not everybody who reads it was the Bass Opener might.

[Juan Grande]

Opener was pretty decent for me. My bro-in-law and I fished for four hours and boated 15 fish. Lots of smaller males on lizards in 2-3 feet of water to start out. Pulled back into 4-6 feet and stuck a few nice ones including consecutive fish of 18, 19.5 and a PB that went a hair short of 21" Got the 18 and 19.5 on a black chatterbait and the 21" on a NS hairy jig in the molting craw pattern. I had my GoPro filming the first hour and a half and (wouldn't you know it) the battery died 10 minutes before the big fish hit. Next time I struggle, I'll just turn off the GoPro Water temps were 60-62 and we didn't see many fish on beds. I think they were on their way up, but the cold front yesterday may have pushed them back. Lots of boats on the lake so all the good spots got picked over fairly quickly.

18"

19.5"

21" with the jig in his mouth

Same fish

On the board

[monstermoose78]

Great Fish Juan!!

[RK]

Great fish Juan. Nice way to get the season off and running. Kinda hard to climb the ladder from there though...

Posted in another thread, so just copying my report over to this one:

My son and I had a great day Saturday - ended up with 35-40 bass, mostly largemouths with a smallie mixed in here and there. No giants (19" was biggest, one of each species) but most fish were 15-17" - not many peanuts at all.

Caught the majority on swim jigs in old rush beds, also caught a few here and there pitching a Texas rigged beaver.

Day started out slow, and it was definitely cold-fronty (was 32 degrees when I got up Saturday AM) so early on I caught a few fish on some cabbage beds outside the rushes (blind pitching a beaver), but when the sun finally came out fish gradually started to filter in to the rushes, and we had a pretty steady stream of new fish throughout the afternoon. We kind of had a milk run of beds we'd cycle through, and you'd pick up a few new fish every time through.

Water temps were in the mid to high 50s, which, ironically, is pretty close to what we typically have for the normal opener a lot of years. Still, weed development was definitely less than what I'd see later in the spring. If I'd been alone I might have spent more time finding and fishing last year's cabbage beds that were still green and maybe would have found some bigger fish, but with a 9-year old it's hard to stop catching, especially when there were lots of pike to keep him busy between bass.

My 9 year old, by the way, was a machine Saturday. We got out at 8 AM, and throughout the day I kept asking him if he wanted to go back to the cabin, and he kept saying no. He took some breaks, but he was still at it when we got off the lake at 8 PM after an evening fishing walleyes. I have him set up with a 6'10" MH casting rod and a little Shimano Scorpion with 40# braid, and he was slinging swim jigs all day. He backlashed once all day. Even had him running the bow mount through a few of the rush beds. It was pretty cool.

Tell you what, the early bass opener was a major plus this weekend. Walleyes were really 'off' and being able to go catch a bunch of bass saved what could have been a pretty dull 'opener.'

[thatoneguy]

Bass on Leech were suicidal on Saturday. Swim jig with a Grass Pig (Swamp Gas) produced lots of solid fish. Way fun!!

[Chemlight]

Caught three bass that beat my personal best on Saturday, using a 1/4oz North Start South Paw, black and blue.

In order of catch:

20"

24"

21"

Don't have a scale, so no weights, but the 21" felt like the heaviest of the three.

[jalberg]

My opener was frustrating. I hit a lake early and fished the areas I wanted to fish for about 4 hours. I caught several but nothing very big. I decided to head to a different lake. This was a mistake. I ended up going to 6 different lakes before I found a place to park. One open spot on a lake that I don't really like that much. I didn't even catch a fish for probably 2 hours before I finally got on to a few. I ended up catching a couple nice ones around 5lbs. That was the highlight of the weekend because I went out on Sunday fished 4 hours, caught 3 small ones, got cold and left. I didn't see much for beds, but the bigger fish I caught looked post spawn.

[th64]

you struggled, persisted and ended up catching some nice fish. Some people can go a couple of years without catching one 5# fish and you got 2 this weekend. You should be proud not frustrated.

I went to a lake were on that day you could throw anything and you would catch a bass, we had bass hit lures covered in weeds. Nothing to be proud of that day. If the sport challenges you and you are learning that is why you go out---------IMHO