Minnesota anglers brace themselves for the 2012 Inland fishing opener. From the Canada Border; Possibly the best advice I can give you is to simply attempt to “Curb” your aggressive nature while fishing cool water. This is NOT the time of year to burn baits and burn water. Yes our big motors are quite impressive and our ability to burn up the lake is equally astonishing. There will be a time and place to fish with the flashy Swaggar…..This isn’t going to be it. 
Still assuming this weekend is about catching walleyes anglers will need to stay within themselves. Do your homework so you are working productive water and then work it SLOW. Don’t rule out non-traditional Walleye locations like Mud and emerging weed lines. Watch your graph very carefully for emerging cabbage and locate transitional areas. Mud warms fast and may very well produce a hatch this weekend with warming water. Transitional areas between rock and emerging weed lines have held a lot of fish in this neck of the woods as of late. Early green weeds are ALWAYS attractive to Walleyes.
Remember that Walleyes in the northern half of the state are still lurking around with a relatively low metabolism level. They don’t have the energy to swim down fast presentations. Rip jigging just looks cool. Don’t work your stickbait like your Tarpon fishing. Surface temps remain cool despite the early ice off. Yesterday’s water temps here on Rainy Lake peaked at a mere 51 degrees in back bays. I’d say the warmest water isn’t where I’d fish, but I’d say access to warm water is something I’d consider.
Quite often I see anglers a bit too Amped up for the opener. Frankly this time of year you can take an extra hour in the morning while finishing your coffee with your friends and forking in one more “Flapjack”. SOAK IT IN FELLAS it’s OPENER WEEKEND!! Let the water warm up a tad in the morning. AGAIN…This can’t be overstated……. Slow it down, Bring it down, Calm it down. Methodically work your presentations this weekend. Working baits too fast often will mean NO action. A slow presentation will catch an aggressive fish and of course possibly turn the nuetral fish. LEARN TO CATCH THE NUETRAL FISH. A Fast presentation ONLY catches the rare aggressive fish. While some anglers think they were only on a small pod of fish the truth of the matter often is they just caught the couple with extreme anger issues. Too eager to try that NEXT spot rather than catch the fish where they are. Remember ALWAYS let the fish dictate to you how you will catch them and NEVER simply enter the day with PLAN A.
While we’re all a bit amped up………Bring it down to lay the hammer down boys!!
We’ll be likely twitching Max Raps in the (Flake Green and Purple Ghost) and working Pulse-R’s in the (Pro Blue or White) on 3/16 oz. H20 Precision jigs over wind blown shorelines. 
Beyond that I’m not ruling out slip bobbers hair jigs and other early season producers.
Good Luck Men!! 
down on em’. It should be a good opener!