2019 Fishing Opener is Now in the Books

Nice 27 Inch Walleye for Saturday

Time sure does fly as last weekend was the official 2019 Minnesota Fishing Opener, which we celebrate at Brindley's Harbor Resort on beautiful Leech Lake.  As always we had a full house with 22 guys for what we call Team Walleye.  This was our 46th annual Fishing Opener on Leech Lake, we have 2 of the original guys that started this back in 1973.  A Lot has changed since then as I have been going since 1990 so this was my 30th year spending opener at Leech.  Prior to this it was spent on Mille Lacs Lake, and even though I was pressured to join Team Walleye, I still like hanging with my friends at Scenic Bay Resort in Isle Minnesota.  Unfortunately that group which consisted of Gary and Dennis Barneson, Brent Enos, Kevin Aiona, Barry Kolden, Dale Larson, and I believe Paul Wenaas had basically disbanded after 9 years so it was pretty easy to switch groups.  Thinking about the early years on Mille Lacs with a simple Lund S14 Deluxe and a 25 hp Evinrude, we had no electronics and the strategy was simple, hold your anchor about 5 feet under your boat then drive towards the reef until the anchor hit the bottom, then you knew you were on the reef!  The strategy at that time was to fish with lighted bobbers and leech's, we did pretty well.  Leech Lake was completely different as the accepted way to fish was dragging an 1/8 ounce jig and a shiner minnow, it proved to be quite effective.  With the wind on Leech usually present, one could drift across a point and always get fish.  Today with modern electronics and a better understanding of the lake, we employ a lot of techniques that 20 years ago would have never even been considered.  And so that theory applied this weekend, it took a while but in the end we not onl found the fish but actually caught a few as well!  For our fishing weekend, we fish 3 days, breaking each day into 2 sessions for a total of 6 session, organized by boat.  Saturday morning was windy and somewhat cool, so my guests and I headed for Pine Point to start everything.  The first drift produced a walleye however 3 drifts later and nothing more.  The water was cold, maybe 49 so it was decided to look for warmer water and Steamboat bay might be the perfect spot.  We headed there and fished a couple of areas as it was definitely warmer water but not much for a bit.  The next strategy was to find shallower water where the wind was blowing into the shore like Hardwoods Point, yet as wee got out of the Narrows area, the first point was solid boats.  To me, shallow water and boats tend to scatter fish so we headed further up the shoreline until there were few boats and the wind would work in our favor.  This was about noon and by 3:00 we had 13 walleyes in the livewell with 4 of us in the boat.  Prime rib was on the menu for the evening so we headed in to compare notes.  Actually my boat did pretty well considering the rest of the guys.  We all decided to head back to the same area for the evening fishing which turned out to be basically the same program, we would drift into the shallow areas near shore, from 6 - 7 feet then any shallower we used the trolling motor to zig zag up the shoreline.  One of the fish that I hooked was a very nice 27 inch fish.  By dark we had 7 walleyes in the boat.  Thinking this might be a good spot to troll shad raps, over the skeptical partners in the boat, I hooked up a #5 Crawfish Shad and started to troll.  Interesting, my remote controlled steering was working when I checked it out before opener however it would not work this weekend.  Suspecting that the battery in the remote was bad, brother Steve volunteered to go into town to get one.  Unfortunately on Sunday everything was closed by the time he got there.  This forced me to try and troll with the big 250 hp motor, which was a little fast but we hammered them on Saturday night as I simply let everyone take a turn at reeling in a walleye, we ended up with 6 more and the bite was fast and furious, probably caught them all in a span of 30 minutes.  Sensing the guys wanted to go, we headed in at 10:00 with another 13 fish caught, for a total of 26 walleyes in the Ranger Boat.  Along with the 27 incher, Team Dave lead 3 out of the 5 categories, Largest fish, Most Individual Points, and Most Team Points. 

Steve's 1st Place Walleye, a 28 Incher!

On Sunday the bite really shut down on the main lake.  heading back to the hot spot the day before
found that the population of boats quadrupled.  Although we did get a walleye, the wind had all but stopped blowing,  the water temp was still about 50, we headed up the shoreline to see if we could identify any new spots. I also used that time to experiment with a better trolling technique which turned out to be back trolling.  4 bladed props do not back up very well and we could keep it at about 1.8 mph, better than the 2.5 mph in forward.  After trying a number of different places we ended up trolling at night with crankbaits on Ottertail Point, a favorite of mine.  While trolling something happened to my power steering, it wasn't there any more.  One could still steer but it was difficult. We caught 5 more walleyes which extended the lead even more as the bite was tough for the rest of the guys.  Monday was nice as we spent a lot of time looking for fish again.  Adam had done well at Little Stoney Point, another trolling area I like.  Having a chance to get back to town, the hardware store was open and was able to secure a new A23 battery, which worked perfect.  Little Stoney is quite rocky so we fished till almost dark and landed one fish but because of the amount of boats around it was decided to head back to Ottertail Point and try the kicker.  It worked perfect and we proceeded to catch another 6 walleyes.  Steve, his son Kevin, and Tom were also on Ottertail, I am sure that Kevin, who was with me the night before had given out my hotspot.  Bringing our score sheet in to be tallied it was soon revealed that Steve had caught a 28 inch walleye on a jig just before dark.  In the end it was OK, he did well and winning 2nd place plus maintaining the top Individual and top Boat award was still pretty good. 

It certainly wasn't our best opener but it also wasn't too bad either.  We were right in the peak post spawn time and it was hard to get them to bite.  The good news is we each got to take home our 4 fish limit of walleye.  The weather wasn't bad at all but admittedly getting older is taking a toll on our durability.  Monday we head to Sioux Lookout, Ontario to fish Lac Seul on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, returning on Friday.  All indications are that it should be a great year there, it always is.  As of now the boat is at Frankies' Marines as they got me right in and have the steering fixed for Monday's trip.  Things are getting crazy as there is a lot to do before heading out.

2018 Leech Lake Opener, In the Books

Biggest Fish Award!

Along with a lot of things going on in my life, the late spring has set back my schedule something fierce!  The ice finally went off of Leech Lake on Wednesday, May 9th, just in time for our 45th Annual Leech Lake Fishing Tournament.  This year was again a full house with 22 of us fishing the Minnesota Fishing Opener.  Without a doubt we struggled this year with almost bluebird conditions all 3 days and no wind, our group caught only 90 walleyes for the entire 3 days.  Last year we caught the same however we did manage to keep 42 fish that met the slot we impose, 12 inches to 20 inches.  This years keeper count was about half that, with only 22 fish kept.  Enough for a fish fry and only a few guys brought home fish.  Because of late ice out in most of the large lakes where shiner minnows are trapped for bait, essentially they were either not available and if they were, they became very expensive whereas one bait shop between Mille Lac Lake and Milaca, MN was selling them for $14.99/dozen.....uffda.  We loaded up on Fatheads this year yet most of our guys prefer shiners and bought them where they could. Saturday morning was our first session and it was pretty slow.  Only a few fish we caught between all of us, quite disappointing.  One group came into the resort with 3 limits of keepers, supposedly caught in Steamboat Bay, a shallow weedy bay, pitching jigs in 4 feet of water.  We knew that the fish would be shallow but pitching jigs in the weeds, it would have been better if one knew exactly where.  My boat actually tried Steamboat but with little luck.  There are channels where walleyes congregate, but apparently not this year. With evening quickly approaching, we went in and had supper before going out again.  The evening wasn't much better yet the thought of trolling number 5 shad raps in less than 6 feet of water seemed intriguing.  Some of our guys were catching a few walleyes on Ottertail Point,  yet this is a great area for evening trolling.  Setting up my crew we started trolling the east shoreline, long lining our Shad Raps till the bumped the bottom.  Just as it got dark something nice hit my lure and after reeling it in, the walleye measured 26.25 inches, a pretty nice fish.  We got another nice fish over 20 but they were the only 2 for the day.  Adam Mayerich was at Ottertail when the lunker was caught, while we headed back to the cabin he stopped at Pine Point on the way back and also caught a 26.25 inch walleye.  Because mine was caught first, my name was entered as in first place while he took second with the same sized fish.  Surprisingly that fish held till we were done on Monday night and I once again took the big fish honors for the trip! 

Beautiful Sunset on Ottertail Point.

 The weather was extremely nice for all three days of the Team Walleye event.  One has to love the Leech Lake sunsets and Saturday night was no exception.  With the sky on fire, you can see in the picture the tip of Ottertail Point on the right, the sunset is on fire with its reflection on the calm water.  There even appears to be a face looking down on us, maybe it's the Good Lord making sure all of us were safe!  Either way they are beautiful and definitely worth seeing.  Sunday was a bust as well as we tried everything, even Sucker Bay!  By Monday night and the only thing going for me was the largest fish prize, Jay and Henry, a couple of guys older than me asked to go with me.  It was great to have them in my boat as my strategy was changing.  For the last night we would fish Stoney Point and end the evening trolling Shad raps along the shoreline across from Brindley's Harbor, our host for the weekend.  We did get a few bites drifting Stoney Point but failed to capitalize on any of them.  When a boat with 4 guys chose to anchor right where we were drifting through, it was time to go to plan B, troll the shoreline.  Neither Jay or Henry had adequate trolling rods or Shad Raps, yet I was ready and rigged them up each with a good baitcaster with heavy pound line (15 lb test) so as not to lose my baits if we got snagged, that worked pretty good as no baits were lost!  We trolled at least a half mile before we hit Little Stoney Point, went around the corner and bang, a walleye hit!  After netting the walleye, it was under 20 inches and eligible for keeping.  5 minutes later we hit another walleye...25.5 inches, another  nice one.  We finally found our sweet spot trolling the west side of Little Stoney, ended up with 4 walleyes, 2 keepers, and had 3 additional fish on before they got off, which was quite good. at 10:30 we stopped to go back and enjoy our final night at camp.  It started slow but ended with quite a bang!

Ben's nice Smallie

Fishing was definitely tough.  With the water so clear and the walleyes "up shallow" we probably don't have the technique needed to look beyond what makes sense.  One good thing that came out of this was finally getting to use my 9.9 hp kicker motor effectively.  It really had been a pain during the past 3 years, didn't run right and steering was connected to the main motor which had to be running to take advantage of the power steering.  I finally had Frankie's install an I Troll Speed Controller for the Kicker as well as a Panther wireless steering unit.  They cleaned the carburetor  and did something to the jets, and this year it started right up and it took about 5 minutes to become proficient in operating the kicker motor such that it was very effective.  We had our moments but for the first time since I have had the boat that it felt as though the trolling function was in full control and worked beautifully.  Admittedly I am anxious to try this on Mille Lacs.  Sunday afternoon Ben Taylor was with me as it was decided to go out to Submarine Island to check it out.  While I threw a crankbait, Ben threw a plastic swim bait and did quite well on it.  Here he's holding an 18 inch smallie, a very nice fish, especially on Leech, which to be honest, I do not recall ever catching a smallmouth bass there.  Friday morning is our time to leave for Lac Seul and fishing opener there.  Apparently all the ice is out however the Rags, a shallow area that cuts off about 3 miles is still too shallow to get through so we'll have to go around.  It's quite easy to fish shallow on Lac Seul as the water is quite stained and about 18 inches is the max one can see down.  Here's hoping the Canadian Opener will be much more successful in the catching department, I remain optimistic!