Big Dave's Lookin' For Some Recognition!

This is my good friend Big Dave Pedersen from Eleva. He pulled up the blog and his only comment was..........."What about me!". So out of my love for my good friends, here's his story. This fish was caught on September 9th, 2003. Big Dave was working in Minneapolis at the time and was in a difficult situation. It was a full moon, I had been doing well on the pond casting rogues, so I asked if he wanted to run up for the evening bite. The witching hour started about 1/2 hour before sunset and lasted as long as we wanted to stay. Dave caught this walleye (28+")that I believe is still his best ever. We caught a number of nice fish over 25 that night as well as a decent 36" northern. I don't get to fish with Big Dave as often as I would like so this trip was a very special and memorable one. One of the pictures from that night ended up being published in the Mille Lacs Messenger newspaper. His head got pretty big about that time! I hope he reads this and feels guilty.

Memorable Memorial Day Walleyes

Memorial Day Weekend on Mille Lacs turned out to be a real interesting outing. I went with my neighbor Tom, who is always a pleasure to fish with. We started fishing a deeper rock reef that always puts out early in the year. The wind was wild so we drifted across the reef, starting at 30 feet up to 16 feet, and back to 25. Usually I can mark fish on this spot however the Genetron only marked 2 fish. After 4 drifts and nary a nibble we moved. The next spot proved as worthless as the first. We moved up on a shallow reef, anchored in 8 feet and threw a leech on. The water was cold and the strategy was to try bobbering. Tom wanted to cast a Tail Dancer and I encouraged it. After a 22 and a 21 inch walleye I knew it was time to troll. Tom left the TD on while I put on a #7 Shad Rap. After the first snag I moved down to a #5. With in the next hour and a half we got 9 more walleyes and a surprising 3 smallies. Ended the night with 11 walleyes and one in the boat. It really got ridiculous about 9:15 when you could literally not go more than 50 without another fish. The picture (and the one on my profile) is a 29 inch walleye, biggest I have caught in years. It was a night to remember for sure.

Minnesota Opener at Leech Lake

Since 1990 I have been fishing the Minnesota Opener at Leech Lake with my friends from Team Walleye (www.teamwalleye.net). This year Team Walleye celebrated it's 35th anniversary at Leech. The majority of those years have been at Brindley's Harbor Resort (www.brindleysharbor.com). Conditions on Leech have ranged from 80 degrees and bluebird skies to substantial ice on the lake, which was the case this year. Fishing has been somewhat slow the last couple of years however the average size has been impressive. 2008 turned out to be the most memorable in the 35 years of opening on Leech. 6 boats/16 guys caught a total of 178 walleyes for the weekend, the most ever. What was even more impressive was the overall size. We shattered all past catch history with the top 3 fish measuring 27, 27.25, and 27.50 inches. These fish were heavy, eclipsing the previous big fish award by over 2 1/2 lbs. My team did well with a total of 54 walleyes caught, top individual points award, and 2nd place in the big fish contest.

The picture is me with a 27.25" pig. Shiners were the bait of choice, the bigger the better. Water temps were 37 to 39 degrees and I believe that the big females had not yet spawned as evidence by the walleye eggs found in the boat. On the last day we finally figured out the need for a trailer hook on our jigs and our hooking success increased substantially.

Getting started

Well I have to start somewhere so I am reaching back to January 13th, 2008. This was a nice mess of crappies I caught in a small lake west of town. The largest was about 12 inches. I caught them on both minnows and waxies, switching as the bite slowed down on each. This was in about 12 feet of water and they started hitting right about sunset.