Well Saturday was windy, rainy and cold, but you know the fishing was good when you really didn’t even notice! As I have for the past 10 years, I open my house to a large group of friends and family to enjoy the Minnesota walleye opener (God bless my wife for putting up with all of us). Every year, rain or shine we all hit the water in search of the mighty walleye for our group fish fry.
We fished a number of different spots in the Alexandria area. Some of us did better than others, but we all ended up catching our share of walleye to contribute to the opener feast. We only kept enough for lunch, but together we had well over 70 walleye ranging from 15”-19” in length.
We caught fish in anywhere from 3-22fow, on a number of different presentations. Our best luck was on sand/gravel areas in 8-14fow, using both lindy rigs and extra wide gap jigs tipped with minnows. The lindy rigs produced fish early, but then it turned to a solid jig bite the rest of the day.
This is one of my favorite times of the year, the walleye are shallow and they’re hungry! There are so many quality fishing lakes in the area, you literally have dozens of great options within 20min of downtown Alexandria. Plan your summer vacation today to the beautiful lakes area and I’ll see you on the water!
Great fish Joe! Looks like you and your crew had a great opener. Keep up the good fishing
Nice Fish Joe!!
And a beautiful sunset to end a fantastic day of fishing!
Nice Joe!
Holy mackeral you guys really put the hammer down on those walleyes!
What a great way to open the season.
Nice job guys!
Nicely done. Must have been a good lunch.
Nice way to start off your season!!
Rudy
Joe,
Awesome opener, and sure sounds like a great time with friends and family.
with those cool of temps, I’d think the shallow crappie movement hasn’t started yet, any thoughts ?
thanks again,
Jack
Thanks Guys!
It was a great lunch. We were too full to move, but there where only a few pieces left over and I ate those for lunch
I’m just not a frozen fish guy, so if I can’t eat it it goes back
Actualy Jack, the crappie have been in the shallows for a few weeks now. Some of the shallow bays are 60deg already. We’ve been getting some great numbers of 10-12″ fish on some lakes and on others, fewer numbers but only large 13-15″ fish. It just depends what you’re after.
On some of the colder lakes I have noticed the crappie still staging out in front of the shallow bays in 12-14fow. Do to the different lake depths the shallow crappie bite gets stretched out over a pretty good time period.
Should have come over to Pelican Joe…We were told of only 2 walleye caught and 1 of them was over 26″. Northern were hot though. I tried everything and just couldn’t get anything to go! I talked with the Manager of the Legion in Ashby and he heard the same thing..Walleye was tough on our lake.
Great report Joe!
Always nice to hear about you guys puttin’ the smackdown on some WhiteTips. 
Congrats on another successful opening weekend Joe!
It’s great to see that you were able to spend it with family and friends. 