Late Ice-Out Opener Advice

I’m heading up to Trapper’s Landing Resort on the south shore with my son and daughter. Anyone willing to share opinions on how the late ice-out might determine the best starting areas to explore for walleye. I know Big Stony and Little Stony Points are popular spring destinations, but I am thinking that shallower water & more protected bays might be the target given the ice just went out on Tuesday. I have no experience with Headquarters Bay, but it looks interesting with the narrows and shallower water. Pelican Island has lots of shallow water, but would be tough in a heavy wind. Any Leech Lake veterans willing to share ideas or GENERAL areas to target?

I haven’t fished Leech on opener enough to know how a late spring impacts it, but my guess would be not much. They should be shallow and hungry on wind blown rocky shorelines. There’s usually masses of people on the places you mentioned, along with Annex, Headquarter Bay, Bear Island and Boy Bay. Generally I stay away from them, and do alright finding the right structure. Once you find a few, you should be able to replicate it elsewhere on the lake. Pitching or dragging jigs away from the boat is key when fishing shallow imo.

I will be on complete opposite end of the lake staying at Steamboat bay resort. Looks like the wind will be coming out of the west friday/saturday /sunday. Looking forward to it and hoping we can have some success. Good luck and will be following this thread for others info and will share any feedback from how our weekend goes.

Good luck! My buddy and I are taking our boys (ages 4 & 5) out for their first opener. I’ll try and post a report tomorrow or Monday.

Trust your electronics. See fish, fish fish. Cadence and color can be important when neutral, snapping can turn lookers into biters.

We made it out Saturday for about 6 hours in the middle of the day with the boys. There was no wind at the cabin when we left, and no wind when we launched…and then a steady 15-20 mph with some big gusts by the time we got to the Narrows, and constantly changing directions. Which was less than ideal with the boys in the boat. Started in the Narrows, and then Pine Point and only a couple northerns to show for it. Sounds like anyone out at midnight to early Saturday did pretty well, and most of the day time bite was pretty slow. We went back to the cabin lake and put the beat down on some panfish, which the boys loved and was just a ton of fun.

As BigWerm mentioned the winds was blowing pretty good. Saturday during the day we fished the mounds, oak point and pine point with little to show for it other than lots of little perch. We tried trolling cranks Saturday evening around sunset and it was a magical couple hours of fishing. We ended up with a 3 man limit and threw a handful of really short ones back along with a nice 24″. They were stacked up in a pretty small zone probably less than 50-75 yards long. 5 FOW and we were trolling at 2mph. Sunday the winds was probably worse and we fished a bit in the morning and then again in the evening trying to replicate the night before but the wind never really let up.

The wind was definitely a factor given we were staying at Trapper’s Landing on the south end. Saturday from 2:30 – 8:30 pm, using mostly jig/minnow, we caught 32 fish total with a mix of perch, hammer handle northern, and walleye. We kept four over 15″ and had two over 23″ that were CPR’d. We had our best luck in 8-9′ of water in the narrows. We fished Big & Little Stoney with no luck and trolled some with no luck. Sunday was mostly a bust with the wind heavier and more out of the north making for some tough conditions. We caught one more keeper and a 24″ eye near the resort, but water temps were ten degrees cooler in that area than in the narrows.