How did the Opener Go? Reports? Pics?

[Matt Johnson]

With the first day of the Minnesota fishing opener out of the way we can now sit back and relax... not! The fishing has only begun and its time to have more fun out there!

So, how did everyone's first day of opener go?

I spent some time in the Chisago area yesterday morning with my old man and we stumbled across a nice pod of shallow water walleye. We threw the new 2" Mister Twister Mino, the 2.5" Gulp minnows and the 2" Berkley Power Minnows at them on 1/16oz or 1/32oz jigs. They definitely preferred something smaller in profile that fell slow.

Any sort of rocky or gravel areas were key if available, or else a mix of weeds kicked out a few fish too. Depths no deeper than 5 feet.

Fished from about 6:30am-11am and boated a total of 17 walleye with the biggest coming in at a hair under 25-inches. Here's a couple pictures...

Not too many females mixed in, a lot of skinnier males for the most part. Also noticed that you sorted through a bunch of smaller bass in all the spots that we landed walleye.

As for bonus fish we also landed a couple nice gills and about a 4 pound bass. The slack water on the points produced a lot of crappies too, but most were 7-9 inches and not a single walleye came from an area where there was an influx of crappies so those spots were short lived.

We tried throwing cranks at a few of the fish but no takers, not even a slimy pike. Small-profiled plastic minnows were the ticket. Tie on a small white tubes if you want panfish

We made it off the lake before the weather came through, started to rain on the way home

Hope everyone had a safe and fun first day of fishing! Good luck the rest of the weekend and the rest of the season!

Let's see some pics and reports!

[Iambjm]

"Hoe" did the opener go?

[Matt Johnson]

LOL... I fixed it Thanks.

[muc33]

Well, my opener was about 17 fish shorter than Matt's. I found that most lakes in SW Mn were in the tight lip rather than tight line catagory. That just means things can only get better! Nice fish Matt.

[Mike Stark]

i was taking a wilderness first responder course yesterday so was not able to get on the water.......but that did not stop me from catching fish.

i live right on a river so during my breaks i went fishing. found a nice eddy line that most be holding what seems like hundreds of walleye. first cast fish...second cast lost a fish...third cast caught a fish....in my 10 min break i had 3 walleye on the stringer....went out on lunch break and caught 6 more...dinner....6 more....they were stacked up and hungry!

great day of fishing....and it is only the beginning....WFR is over and the next four days are dedicated all to fishing!!!

good luck and be safe.

mike

[Team Otter]

Nice photos and report. Compared to the 100+ people I have talked to over the past 32 hours, you did very well!

[Mike Walerak]

I had a couple a hours so I hit the river for a quick evening run and had 1 big sauger and a 22 inch eye.

I was actaully hoping for a couple eaters but no such luck.

It was sure peaceful with all the people up north!

mw

[CHM]

I hit a small, shallow lake with two friends. The surface temp read 54 degrees but it was my first time on the water with my new (used) rig - can't verify that temp.

We started out pitching jig & minnows with the boat in 8 FOW and we were throwing right up to shore. After a few bass and northerns I decided to try my first ever Gulp 3" minnow. Within a dozen casts I caught a 22" walleye. Then one of the other guys switched to Gulp. A few minutes later I picked up a little eater eye. We had to leave early because my friend's wives wanted to hit the garage sales. We picked up many, many bass but no more walleyes. We left the lake at 10:30 after starting at about 7.

I am sold on Gulp. It does really work.

[solbes]

Dropped the boat in a Walker area lake Friday night. Was a little chilly, but got up at 5:30 am Saturday anyway. Was on about my 10th cast with a white X-rap at 6:15 am and hooked into something big. Didn't have a lot of fight, but then again the water was only 41 F. Saw her come up to boat and I just started beaming. 29" long, 14" girth caught in about 7 FOW.

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and the release

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Didn't catch anything else the whole weekend, but I didn't mind! I did manage to get the dock in later Saturday as it was snowing. Oh and caught a guy trying to steal my tool box on the road while I was 200 feet away. A very interesting weekend indeed!

[Bandit]

Wow nice fish, The release pic makes it look even bigger!

[Team Otter]

Beauty!

[MinnesotaMongo]

Solbe, that is an absolutely beautiful looking walleye. Classic looks! Thanks for posting that.

[Royce Aardahl]

I ended up with 5 on saturday the best being a 23 from mille lacs. only got 2 there then 3 at the river between 16 1/2 and 19. popped down yesturday for an hour a got one. Flash was set toooooo bright.

[Grant Pearson]

great looking fish!

[Chode2235]

Glad to hear somebody was catching them, I was out Saturday and the fishing was slow. Sounds like we were fishing a little too deep, but the fish we did have did come off of rocks and hard bottoms.

[PerchJerker]

I went to Red with a group of guys. I have a cabin a little over an hour away from Red and we've had a group do this trip ever since the season opened there 3 years ago. There were 7 of us this year.

We had okay fishing Saturday, the weather made it pretty tough with snow, sleet, rain, 34 degrees, and lots of wind blowing in on the shore we wanted to fish. We cut our day short due to the weather and ended with 12-20 fish per guy for most of the group.

Sunday was awesome, the weather was beautiful and the fish were on the bite big-time. We caught fish all day long and lost count, some of the guys thought they had 35 fish each, other guys were over 50 fish. In my boat we had 4 triples and so many doubles we lost count. We had several fluries of activity where you'd catch fish on 3-4 consecutive casts.

All of our fish came from 2-6 feet of water. We started with jigs and shiners and later switched to big plastics (5 inches) which the fish were t-boning, completely inhaling, or otherwise smacking the you-know-what out of. It was a very fun trip.

[hardwaterjig]

Lake of the woods report; The fishing was fantastic!! We fished with Brian from lakeroad lodge was a blast!! We caught all the fish we wanted.We released 30 fish over 19.5 inches. The biggest one was 29inches long. Also caught a couple of big stergon. The service we got was great very friendly and knowledge of the lake was also great. He is a great host. I highly recommend Brian if your coming up to fish low. Thanks again Brian for the great weekend of fishing!!!! See you again soon.

[caseynewberg]

Did good got a 24 inch walleye and Jake got a 25 inch walleye. Then I got a 32 inch Northern.

[bigbucks]

Did well in OT County. Fish were really biting well from 6-8am, slowed down after that, but still caught plenty. We were done by noon. We were sick of the rain by then anyway.

[Team Otter]

Have to love the shallow URL spring bite. Any crappies?

Great looking fish all!

[No_Net]

Spent 2 1/2 days on Leech and all I can say is wow. 3 of us put 49 fish in the boat. A 28" 3 27" every thing alse was in between 22"-26 3/4" inch with the average proble 25" and 2 that were keepers. There was also 5 other boats in a group that did the same.

[tisosy11]

Manoman - can't wait to get out and catch/release some good 'eyes!

[solbes]

Glad to hear the good report about Leech. I hope to get over there more this summer!

[Team Otter]

Quality and quantity: tough to beat that!

[icefishing21]

here was my biggest walleye last weekend caught on cass lake.