any one have a good opener story

[fishinkrop]

I have never fished on the opener and will be this year. what if the wether is bad? what if the fish dont bite? that would be bad!!

[Bigfife]

I love the opener because there is so much more entertainment on the lake than just the fishing. Every opener I fish is on Mille Lacs lake. First let me say that 99% of people know what to do, but the other 1% are hilarious.

Four years ago we were anchored on a shallow rock flat at 3 am. Two guys come backtrolling through the pack of boats. The guy driving the boat sets the hook. Now he is trying to control the boat and reel in the fish. The fish will not come so he finally realizes that he is snagged. Unfortunately, the snag was my friend's anchor rope. He nicely gets as close as he can and just cuts his line. The guy goes outside the pack and reties his line. Here he comes again for pass two. This time it's my Dad's bobber that he backs right over. After untangling the line and throwing the bobber back, he finally decides that it was time to go find another place to fish. We still talk about that guy every year.

Two years ago I watched a guy at the access trying to pull his boat out. He was driving an F150 with a manual transmission. He went to pull forward and pull the boat out. The truck started rolling back and by the time he finally let the clutch out the back end was under water. The duallies made a nice water fountain as the guy drove out of the lake.

Last year I watched somebody power load their brand new crestliner onto the trailer. He came in at a bad angle and then hammered on the gas. The boat jarred off to the side and pinned itself between the fender and the winch. The winch put a huge gash in the front end. They had to back the trailer way in to float the boat off the trailer and then load it the correct way.

The fishing usually is pretty good too.

[LuciandTim]

Fish on the opener???

[msm1018]

I fish a relatively quiet lake so no fun events occur. normally slaughter the northern though. I'd rather cut my line than touch those "things".

[picksbigwagon]

was on leech a few years back with a buddy. it was snowing, raining and sleeting all at the same time. we went into a protected bay in about 18 feet and were catching fish. well the wind really starts to whip it up so we decided to head in.

Now here is the truly stupid part: we were in a 14 foot boat, I was wearing all carhart stuff, non water proof, I am 6'7" and well over 250 and I was laying down in the front of his boat as we are heading back the mile of water to the harbor. The only good thing was that the waves wer going the same direction we needed to go.

part of the way back I can hear my buddy in the back yelling 24 feet/17 feet, 24 feet/17 feet up and over every single wave. Well we get closer to the harbor and I feel the boat turn, I look up and he is digging around in the back of the boat floor and we are turning crosswise into 6-7 foot rollers....I scream at him to keeep the boat going straight, and he tells me he dropped the drain plug... well he finds it we get in the harbor where my brother in law is waiting in his car with some hot coffee. as we pull in to the dock, I start laughing, not at our experience, but at our stupidity... 2, 27 year old teachers in a 14 foot boat in 7 foot rollers, and the life jackets are still tied to the side of the boat.

Since then, I put the lifejacket on whenever the wind picks up, otherwise I sit on it. On a side note, we were the only guys that day at the resort who caught fish, we were the last boat in too, the resort owner was a little concerned to say the least.

[luckyc]

My wife and I were fishing on Mille Lacs one opener at 3AM. I had made a light out of conduit and a tail light that was about six feet over our heads, casting a circle of light about twenty feet. Out of the shadows comes a set of eyes about four inches apart, here comes a walleye skiming the top of the water with it's mouth open catching all the minnows that the light had attrached. My wife screams and I sit there with rod & rapala in hand and just watch her until she gets to within five feet of the boat and dives. She had to be a 10+ pound walleye. Needless to say I've never caught one that big or seen anything like that again.

[gunflint]

A few years back, must have been the same year picksbigwagon was talking about, my son and I decided to portage in to this so called secret lake. After carrying the canoe a 1/4 mile over and under blowdown we got to the lake.

Then the wind picked up to about 20mph. That wasn't so bad until the snow and sleet started. After a couple hours of fighting the weather (no fish) we decided to take a break on an island that was down wind. As we drifted within 15 feet of shore a cow moose with 2 newborn calves took exception to sharing her island with us. We back paddled against the wind as fast as we could, luckily she calmed down and didn't pursue us. That was it for the day and I have'nt fished out of a canoe since.

4 or 5 openers before that, same son different lake we had caught 5 or 6 eater walleyes in the morning and decided to take lunch. After about an hour we got back to the canoe and the stringer with the walleyes on it was all tangled up in the brush. I figured a racoon or otter got it but when I picked the stringer up out of the water there was a 8# northern with one of our walleyes stuck in his throat. Opener is always an adventure with or without fish.

[I'llTakeWhatiCanGet]

Picks,

Sounds like your earned your dinner that day There's something to be said about coming through situations like that though, makes for some good story tellin around the camp fire.

Personally i hope to have a shotgun in my hands on fishing opener. No, i'm not that bad of a fisherman, we put in for turkey hunting that weekend. Crappy weather is a lot easier to put up with when you're hunkered down under a stand of pines, and the opener trips we've taken to Milly have been lacking in the fish department. Bigfife is right on though, some of those fellas can be pretty darn amusing to watch

[jparrucci]

Every opener on Vermillion is a good time. A few years back we limited out in about an hour. A few years before that I caught a monster Smallmouth on opening evening, didn't realize that bass opens up the same time as walleyes/pike do, I would have had that one mounted, 5 1/2#s is a monster smallie. 2 years ago it was neat watching the lunar eclipse out on the lake when it was calm, couldnt keep the walleyes out of the boat at the time.

[efgh]

My father-in-law and myself went to Brainard for opener one year, we had very good luck fishing for pike on edward and panfish on gilbert, got home and the father-in-law and mother-in-law went right back to gilbert to fish panfis, when they were done they loaded the boat,tried to leave and the pickup just spun on the ramp so he hooked in the 4 wheel drive, didn;t know the axle on the boat trailer went off the end of the ramp,he pulled the trailer axle off the trailer frame, should have heard the story he told when he got home.

[MT Net]

Opener is always a fun time; good stories!

My wife and I were fishing Vermilion near Gibby's Reef with about a dozen other boats. Were were anchored slip bobbering, the others were also, or drifting around. Every now and then someone would come around the north side of Ely Island and blast right through the group of boats, never slowing down.

After the 3rd time, one of the guys stands up, flips the speeding boat the bird and lets out a long string of efenheimers at him. After he settled down and sat, a booming voice from one of the other boats said, "Hey, you mind watching your language, I'm here fishing with my son". We all looked over to see two men, one of them was about 80 years old, the other was about 60 years old. We all had a good laugh at that one.

Fishing was lousy, but I did manage to reel up a chunk of bark.

[Mr. B]

This story is true after reading it the phase you can’t make this up will come to mind. Fishing opener in my family if usually a big deal, consisting of friends and family getting together to have a good time and hopefully catch some fish.

I was 16 and it was my job to make sure the boat was already for the big day. I must have spent two weeks going through the boat making sure it was clean and everything was in good working condition.

Finally the big day arrives and we head out to the lake to catch fish. As my father is backing the boat in to the lake I am attaching the 10 horse trolling motor to the boat. The boat is finally in the water everything is loaded and we are ready to go. Turning the key to start the boat and nothing happens. Dead battery. Turns out that I left the radio on the night before while making the final preparations. Not a big problem, we just took the battery out of the truck and off we went.

We get about 200 yards from the dock and all of a sudden the gas can connected to the trolling motor whips past my leg and lodges against the back of the boat. After taking a quick look we find out that the trolling motor is now in about 20 feet of water. You can see the white top clear as day. We all look at each other and decide there is not a lot we can do at this point so we head out fishing. We make a plan to go and rent a wetsuit and go and get the motor later that evening. I was a scuba diver, so this should not have been a big deal.

As we continue to head up the lake there is a loud pop, a shower of sparks and a puff of smoke out of the flasher. Seems that the flasher decided it did not want to go fishing either. We all look at each other and decide that we are already here we will try fishing anyway. We should have taken the hint.

After an hour of no fish and two busted reels my father finally decides that he has had enough and it is time to go get the motor that is at the bottom of the lake. We run in to town to rent the wet suit and collect the rest of my gear so I can go and get the motor. Due to a high school athletic event, the only wet suit we can get was my father’s size, so he has to dive for the motor instead of me. The actual retrieval of the motor goes pretty well. The disturbing part was once the motor was back in the boat; we determined that the reason it slipped off the back was I turned the screws the wrong way.

As my father spends the evening cleaning out the motor I decide to go fishing. After all, it was opener and I had not caught a fish yet. I’m told that as long as I stayed in the bay I could go. After anchoring near where I think the break is I start fishing. After a short time I notice that I am drifting. I pull the anchor up to reposition myself and there is no anchor. Now even I have had it. The ten-minute trip back to the dock to explain that someone the anchor was lost after everything else that had happened was extremely painful. To my father’s credit, he just laughed and said, “watch this.” He reaches over and tried to start to trolling motor. First pull it fired up - all it took was empting the water from it and cleaning the spark plugs.

This opening weekend marks 18 years since this happened, and I am still taking abuse for this fishing outing. It is all good-natured and deserved but it would be nice to have a statute of limitations on fish stories.

[FOOT]

Openers can be a lot of fun, especially when the Walleye are on a bite.

Each one is special since I've been going with my children and over the next 5 years I will have the opportunity to include my grandchildren.

One of the best openers we ever had was on Winnie several years ago with my wife, daughter and son. We got on the water at 06:30 and went directly to a favorite spot on the North end. By 10:30 I asked my wife to count the Walleye in the live well to make sure we didn't go over our limit. She counted 21 Walleye. That meant we could catch 3 more before we had to quit and go in to shore for shore lunch. No not Walleye the kids liked hot dogs better so that's what we would have is hot dogs roasted on an open fire.

Well, we caught 3 more and headed to shore. While I was getting some drift wood for a fire I asked my wife to count once more to make sure. You guessed it, this time she counts 25, one over the limit. I counted them and sure enough one over. I grabbed the liveliest one and put it back in the water. Thank goodness it swam away strongly.

I don't fault my wife for miss counting it's something anyone could have done.

But that was over 20 years ago and now we are not concerned with keeping everything we catch. We still fish hard all day but only keep enough for an evening meal. Then hit it again the next day. Our last day, Monday, we usually will keep 3-4 Walleye per person so our families can have a fresh fish dinner when we get back home.

To answer the original question, "if its bad weather what do you do". Pick a lake that will offer a sheltered bay or smaller lake close by. There have been times when Winnie was totally unfishable for a day or two on opening so we just fish Cut Foot Sioux. Some years that's saved the trip.

Just enjoy.

[hoggs222]

Last year on Buffalo, we were heading in from fishing at about 6:00 PM. The line was just packed at the landing. This guy in a mini van got stuck in the sand as he was trying to pull his boat out of the water. So, he unhooks the boat & gets the van free. He goes back to hook up the boat again & forgets to secure the hitch. He pulls the boat out of the water & sure enough the boat & trailer goes free & smashes its way down into the lake. His motor was knocked off of the boat & damaged. Not a pretty site. By this time, there's a huge pile-up of boats waiting for him. I felt bad for this guy, because his kids were there to witness this whole thing.

[Farley]

Opener on Cokato Lake a few years back: I put myself and two of my buddies in my 14 footer and we head out, two of our buddies are planning on comming out later after they hit the bar. Needless to say, we knew excatly when they got there because we see a van pull up backing in a boat and hear a voice (we were halfway accross the lake) "O.k., come back, come back, come back, STOP! pull ahead, STOP! come back come back, STOP!" I said that must be them so we listend a little more and heard: "O.k., come back, little more, little more, SPLOOOSH!, then every 4 letter word in the book.

So they finally get their boat in the water and come motoring up to us laughing and explained why one of them was all wet, we all had a good laugh, but we didnt want to stick around with them so they went their way and we went ours. Now we are on opposite sides of the lake and we can STILL hear them. Fished for about an hour and they come motoring over to us and the other guy is soaking wet. He dropped his flashlight in the water and was leaning over the side of the boat and fell in upside down up to his knees, the only thing that saved him from going all the way in was the other guy grabbed him by the ankles as he went in. "We've had enough" is the last words I heard from them that night.

Last year on Kabetogama, the two guys came with and both managed to get wet, on seperate occasions along with another guy we brought up there. I guess it's just one of those opener mysteries.

[slick814]

Like MTNet, I normally fish Vermilion on opener. The crowds and general, "Hey, there's someone fishing by himself, let's go there and see if he's catching anything" attitude was driving me nuts a couple of years ago, so I thought I'd try something.

I reached into the storage compartment, and took out 2 marker buoys. After tossing them out, I trolled back & forth a few times, and even gave a little "Woo-hoo" here & there. Of course I hadn't caught anything, but from a distance you wouldn't know that...

A guy came over, started fishing the same strip between my buoys. I pulled up the trolling motor, and when he asked if I caught anything, I said, "Yup, limited out, gotta get these back to shore", and headed out to one of my favorite spots, where there was no one else fishing. Caught a few, and went back after a couple of hours.

The same guy was there, along with half a dozen other boats when I went back to the other spot. I picked up my buoys, and listened as the other fishermen comlained to each other that there were no fish... had to laugh, because the first guy was telling them, "I swear, this guy caught his limit over here. THere's fish, we just have to figure out what they're biting on"....