Big Sleepy and I made the trip up to Upper Red Lake for the opener, and it can be described as an absolutely phenomenal fishery.
Saturday was a beautiful day. We launched at the Tamarac River public access and hit the water at about 5:30am. There was only a few boats to be seen around, but that changed by about 8:00am. The morning bite was somewhat slow, landing only a handful of fish in the first few hours. As soon as the sun got up in the sky a ways, the fish really turned on. An estimate of our catch on saturday would be 50+ fish by 4:30pm. That is an honest guess, its hard to keep track. We heard reports of numerous people having hundred fish walleye days while chasing crappies, and i can believe it.
Swung into West Wind Resort for a bite to eat at noon, and to take about an hour break from the fast fishing. We fished both north and south of the river mouth in about 5-8ft water. It didn’t seem to matter much where you were, fish were being caught everywhere, by everyone. We did come to find a few small areas produced more fish than others by marking concentrated catch areas on the gps. We caught walleyes saturday on everything we could throw at ’em, rigging, slip bobbers, plastics, stick baits, spoons, jigs, minnows, leeches, crawlers, drifting, trolling, pretty much anyway u wanted too. For us, we found pulling stick baits like x-raps, floating raps, and husky jerks to be a fun and fast way to put fish into the boat. They really hammer the rapalas when your trolling, well i guess they hit everything hard. They are all fat, healthy aggresive fish. The majority of the fish we caught were in the 17-20 inch range, with the biggest being about 21.5 in. We were able to get our under 17 in slot fish for a meal, but they were alot harder to come by.
Sunday brought strong stiff winds and made fishing alot more difficult. Backtrolling against the waves, or drifting with a sock out proved to be the simplest way to go about dealing with the large rollers. We used mainly jigs or rigs with leeches or fatheads. We fished until about 11:00 boating 15 nice walleyes with our 4 slot fish and then headed out for the 6 hr. cruise home.
We tried for Sturgeon on LOTW/Rainy River on friday before the opener for a few hours, but were only able to boat 7, with the biggest being a few 3 footers. It was a fun time to pass the day before the opener, even a 3 footer can still put up a good fight. Definetly a big difference from the 2 weeks prior!
FYI, there is also a great sheep head bite in about 2 fow on URL!!
Lets hope the MN DNR and the Red Lake band can work everything out so this lake can continue to be a great fishery for everyone to enjoy. I see no problem with the current 2 fish under 17 slot. We like to eat fish and we kept a few for a meal, and there is nothing wrong with that. With proper care, management, and ethical responsible anglers, in another 10 years just think what this lake could be like!
