Ok gentleman forget last years success or failures on the opener. Play the current conditions and forget about the calendar. Last season we enjoyed a record early ice-out here on Rainy lake, and this year was we were simply a day away from normal ice free conditions. Since our “Ice Retreat” Our water has been very slow to warm, so this will likely have opening weekend walleyes a bit more lethargic than May of 2010. Still I assure you even nuetral fish can be caught with great success if you fish them correctly. For anglers looking to boat a opening weekend monster I might suggest slowing down your presentation, but not dramatically reducing bait size. Too often anglers are too jacked up for opener and fish far to aggressive. We plan on fishing relatively big presentations 4 inch Moxies and 5 inch + stickbaits. Having both of these presentations laced up will allow us to trigger more fish from the school. I assure you we will be working these baits pretty slow. We plan on lacing up our Moxies with Draggin Jigs which will should allow us to entice slow moving “Tankers”. I assure you big walleyes still want big bait, but they simply might not be willing to expend a lot of energy to find it. As these bigger female walleyes are recovering from the spawn cycle they demand a steady diet of protein, yet also must minimize initial energy spent for the meal. It is a simple risk vs. reward aspect for these fish. I like to figure it this way; Give a Minimum effort for Maximum results!!(Big bait that looks like Grandma Betty can catch it!!) So if your opening weekend goal is to land that TANK walleye slow it down boys, and bring along your favorite “Netting Pal”. You can tell him about the slowdown philosophy after your trip!! Heck…..Every fisherman has to have a couple secrets!! 
May 13, 2011 at 7:30 pm
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