Southern Area Report

The bite is starting to shape up nicely for southern area lakes. Don’t be afraid to motor past the points, bars, humps and community spots. Back bays with weeds are warming quickly, drawing in baitfish and walleyes.

The lake I hit today has a nice large, shallow bay with patches of weeds sprouting up in 3 to 5 feet of water. This part of the lake was 3 degrees warmer than the rest of the lake and the walleyes were swimming in amongst the patches. All I did was work the boat back and forth along the outside of the weeds, pitching a jig/minnow. Every fish i caught had it chunked down the throat, or hooked TDC. Nothing huge, but beautiful pan sized 15 to 17 inchers.

Best part (besides the fish)….I was the only boat in the entire bay area the whole time I was out. The other 25-30 boats were congregated around points and other mid-lake areas.

Tight lines!

May I ask what water temp you were finding? A couple of my local Southern MN lakes set up like what you explained so I might have to give this pattern a shot.

Teenaged girls swimming in a lake and walleye anglers both scream if they touch a weed!

My wife gets high when she touches weed! Haha. Just kidding!

The main lake was fluctuating around 56 to 57 degrees, but the bay was up to 60.5. Still a bit chilly for these parts, but we’ve got some good temps coming this week and fishing should continue to improve. Hopefully the bigger girls start to show up as well.

I should mention….the lakes I fish early on are small, shallow lakes bottoming out at 15ft deep or so. As we get to mid-June I’ll begin migrating to the larger, deeper lakes. There’s good fishing on the larger, deeper lakes early on, but I’m a big fan of skinny water walleyes and they seem to make that shallow movement a little later in the season on the deep lakes. Water temps & weed growth plays a large roll in my decision making process.