Opener

Anyone out today?
I’m curious about water temps as the weather warms up?

58 northwest corner today. Fish are biting both bass and eyes. Seen some smallies bedding in shallow water. Bite for both species is going to be pretty good. Been one of the better openers in a few years.

We did not crush them by any means over opening weekend, but enjoyed the nice weather and nice fish. Ended up with 14 and a smallie. 17-25 inchers. Mix of skinny and healthy.

Here is my opener report.
Fished Saturday morning through Monday night. Fished mostly mornings and evenings. Came off mid day. So two sessions a day. 2 guys 1 boat. Water was 53 degrees Saturday and 58 when I left last night. In the harbor where I launched I saw probably 25 smallies doing their thing. Water was 64 there.

Averaged 30-40 fish per session. Mornings seemed to be a little better as the evening bite didn’t get going for me till about 830. Found fish from 4ft to 15ft. 10-13 was best for us. Best success was sand to small gravel transitions and sand to mud. Found some fish on the bigger rocks but they seemed more scattered.
Did not find a spot you could pound all day but found many spots holding fish and if you moved around a bit it was fantastic fishing.
Jig and shiner ruled for me but caught fish rigging minnows and leeches pulling cranks at dark and slip bobber with a leech. I stayed away from north end sand.
Biggest walleye was 26in biggest smallie was the fattest 20.5in fish I have ever seen.
Weather was best I can remember for an opener. Fish are hungry and active.
Saw lots of fish being caught.

Following up here:

Sounds like we certainly did not do as well as others. We didn’t go far enough north IMO. We barely touched red door. 2 of us.

We ended up with only 25 eyes. Only 2 under 18″ biggest was 23″

Fished 12am-3am, 8:30-3:30, 8:30-1:30, and 8:30-12:30.

Jig and shiner during the day and pullin cranks at night.

Should have ventured further north.
Water was 50-54 over the weekend

Thanks for the reports. I monitor water temps for boilogical and regulartory reasons. Any water temp updates I can get would be appreciated. Whatcha ya’ll think about installing a weather buoy where you could check water temp, wind, etc in real time? Something like this: https://www.d.umn.edu/buoys/

Why buy a buoy when you can get guys to do your work for you?

I did pretty good chasing smallmouth today. My Father and I caught 18 of them, 2 walleye, and a pike. 5 of the bass were between 18-20 inches. A jerk bait and a tube were both effective. Water temp was 58.5, east side of the lake. Did not see any bass on beds yet.

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Very nice, will be up for the week of the 27th chasing smallies. Curious what all the rain you guys are supposed to get ends up doing to the lake. Id imagine it might push some fish out a bit until it warms back up.

I saw a lot of bass just roaming around in shallow water. Once I could visually see them, I could not get them to bite. I would mark it on my GPS, and then come back to that area later on and make a very long cast. That would often produce a bite or two.

Also, I did much better on the bigger smallmouth when the sun wasn’t out. Cloudy, choppy conditions seemed to help that. I caught a lot more smaller males when it was bright and sunny.

If anyone is up fishing this week please report the water temps and your general location/area. I’m wondering what the rain is doing there this week and thinking of trying another outing before the smallmouth spawn. TIA

I will be up saturday morning. I will let you know.

Hope to go out for a bit tomorrow. I will tell you we had a hell of a midge hatch the last couple days. NW wind blew em right to me.

empty_stringer wrote:

Hope to go out for a bit tomorrow. I will tell you we had a hell of a midge hatch the last couple days. NW wind blew em right to me.

Ain’t that the truth. Lot’s of carcass’ on the drive / sidewalk.

Water temp Wahkon area on the main lake was 59 degrees, forgot to look what it was in the bay. Picked up a few nice walleye on a short trip tonight.
AND the bugs still be a buzzin.

Thanks for the update.

Took daughter and her friend out this afternoon and had a pretty good day. Caught some nice smallies, biggest was 19” and eyes. Went out of cedar creek landing on east side and stayed in that area. Water temps were 59ish. Girls got to do all the catching.

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