Bringing South Dakota to Minnesota

Since Graduation I have been studying to take my NCLEX and have not gotten out as much as I would like. I recently took a class in white bear lake for 3 days in which the weather was relatively stable which had me itching good to get out on the water. Sunday came and I was greeted with a big fat cold front, mist and some wind. Fortunately the sun popped out and we were off to the lake. I took my two brothers with me and we were on the water fish around 4pm. Living in South Dakota I learned to fish shallow, fish fast, and fish aggressive. I sometimes take this tactics back to my home waters of Minnesota. Sometimes these sophisticated walleyes go for it and other times they turn up there noses. Thankfully for me these eyes were willing and hungry.

In speaking of terms of South Dakota this shallow basin lake fit the bill of what I was used to and I followed the wind to find the fish stacked up on a small point. Most boats were fishing in 6 foot of water. With shallow dirty lakes and good wind fish will keep pushing shallower in my experience to feed. We found most of our fish in 4 feet of water on a hard gravel bottom with some scattered rock. We started with two different approaches. We trolled number 5 SSRs in chartreuse color as well as did try some spinners with colorado blades and hammered bronze pattern. The spinners produced well but then the wind sat down and the cranks shined through. We ran one on a planer board at around 2.5 mph and this was the ticket as the sun began to set in the sky. On some passes we even would kick the speed up to 2.8 and this would trigger fish to smash the small bite size cranks. “Fish Fast”.

Toward dark the bites were closer together and the fish were more concentrated using the bow mount trolling motor I was spinning some of the tightest corners I think I have ever done to stay on fish. We ended with 19 fish boated and kept 12 for a few fries this week while I am home with the family. Right now with rising water temps and mid summer conditions for all better purposes do not be afraid to crank up the throttle a bit and go outside of the box when it comes to fishing. Another reason I feel a good shallow bite will hold on for a bit is the shift of small pan fish to the shallows to spawn as well. I have had good success trolling sunfish pattern shad raps as well as baby bass over shallow flats during the day for walleyes. This time chartreuse was our color and we stuck with it. Hope you all have a chance to get out fishing soon and good luck. -Quintin