This is my first fishing report for the 2005 season and I’m more than a little excited about being back in a boat and on the water after a LONG lay-off over the winter. For all intents and purposes I hadn’t fished at all since last year except for a little pre-fishing late last week and getting out of the office from behind the computer and out onto the water was just what the doctor ordered! 
My first guide trip of 2005 was with Willie Kuecker and his fishing buddy Bruce. These two guys have fished with either Dustin or I a handful of times and they always seem to find a way to schedule their trip on a day when the fish are just slammin’! And this trip was no exception… 
River levels are "normal" for this time of year and visibility is excellent. The run-off we were seeing from Hay Creek and the Vermillion has slowed due to the colder nights and there is almost no small debris in the water to foul lines. With the massive snow event we’re seeing today and the warmer weather we’re slated to see next week, the river will be on the rise soon but for now, it’s a piece of cake to navigate and fish.
Pre-spawn before high water levels make things a little harder to locate fish is one of the easiest and most predictable times of the year. Lots of fish in close quarters and sooner or later, those fish have to eat. This year we’re blessed with an AMAZING quantity of 20" – 23" walleyes up in the river already with nearly all of these fish being egg-heavy females. A quick note… a 20" fish is almost ALWAYS a female and will be loaded to the gills with spawn. In a couple weeks these fish will be dropping eggs to ensure the health of our fishery for years to come. When you’re fortunate enough to catch one, take a pic and quickly release her. These fish are our prime spawners and if you have any heart at all seeing these fish on a fillet board bellies busting with eggs is a little tough to swallow. OK, enough preaching…. 
Our plan of attack was to hit a couple areas near the dam in the early AM by dragging ringworms up and downstream before the crowds would invariably push us out of these spots. Depths targeted have been 6′ – 15′ and on Thursday the fish were shallow in 6′ – 8 ‘ of water and on the chew.
Dragging light jigheads and purple chartruese tail ringworms was the ticket and all 3 of us in the boat quickly were into fish with Willie drawing first blood after just minute or two. We are seeing a nice average size of fish with this technique with one out of every second or third fish being over 20" which is a heck of a lot of fun and allowed Willie and Bruce to weed through our catch to keep the 6 under 18" males they wanted for the day in a couple downstream passes. Bruce is shown in the first photo holding a 22" walleye… one of many in that class caught during our trip that we released.
Once the boats started to show up our bite slowed down so we ran well downstream looking for a shot at a piggie. We opted to fish a staging area with deeper water nearby that frequently kicks out some big fish this time of year. On thursday all we could muster up was more of the same… 20" – 21" fish but fewer fish in numbers so our time south of the resort was limited to a couple of hours.
In the afternoon we opted to switch gears and do some casting to the shorlines…. GOOD MOVE! We started out on some riprap and connected nearly immediately using 3/16th ounce black H20 heads with a pro blue ringworm…. the fish REALLY showed a prference for this color on thursday in that shallow water. What made our afternoon was how aggressively the fish were pounding our baits… this was NOT a light tick or a hook-up following a sensation of weight! These fish, a nice mix of large pike and walleyes, must have been actively feeding in advance of the approaching snow storm and we caught them just at the right time. For the next couple hours we hopped rip rap and took fish regularly with most bites coming in about 4′ – 6′ of water.
Like pike? The pike are grouped up pretty good staging for spawn and are feeding actively, if you can find them. We hit 3 or 4 like the one shown in the photo held by Bruce with a BUNCH of fish lost to bite-offs. This coming Tuesdy I have some customers coming that are die-hard pike and muskie chasers and I plan to see if we can’t spend the afternoon targeting these fish to see if we can’t stick a super-sized prespawn northern or two. Check back next wednesday and if we’re able to get into them, I’ll have pics and of course a report.
In the past we’ve seen some real big pike this time of year. Gary, you ready to stick a hog next Tuesday?!
Holy Cow James, that’s one piece of pike you’re holding up there!! Did you get a length? Nice to see you back in the saddle. Great report, as always… thanks, makes the rest of us not on the water get very itchy to be there too.
No length. Us walleye guys carry these itty-bitty rulers that just don’t do pike well. She was a massive-fat pre-spawn pike I caught fishing with Dustin a couple years ago. Caught her on a 1/8 ounce jig and a purple white ringie tossing to some flooded trees. I thought I had a carp on at first and tried to break the line…. lol Once I saw her head I knew different and took it easy until Dustin could scoop her. To be honest, if we weighed her I don’t remember a weight.
Dustin was there, maybe he can remember and chime in here.
Yup, we weighed her. She was right at 20lbs on the trusty digital scale. That’s a lot of slime
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Good to see that Thursday went as good for you as Wednesday did for me. On Wednesday, I worked the same program as you, dragging ringworms in the am hours with good numbers of eye’s then headed off to cast for the big one. Ended up with 2 nice eye’s in the 5lb to 5.6lb range casting but nothing bigger. The 2 best fish my customer and I saw on Wednesday were heavy 23″ fish, much like the fish you have pictured
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Oystershell ringies and plain 1/8oz precision heads did the trick for us
. Purple/chartreuse tail took some nice fish as well.
James and Dustin,
very good reports, and super Walleyes, good to see you guys back on the water every day again.
Jack..
Good to see you back on the water James!
Great report as usual! 
Nice Fish.
How do you think the river will be by next monday. Do you think all the the melting this week will make the River to dirty?
Thanks for the info.
I think the river will be just fine next week…. we will actually see an improvement in the bite once we get some run-off.
On a side note… it seems like the river just “woke up” in the last couple days as far as multi-species fishing goes. We’re still catching a bunch of decent pike when we want to target them plus we caught a 5.5 Lb brown trout today and a 4 Lb smallie. Throw in a bunch of walleye and you have yourself a heck of a good time.
James, when do you see the waters turn for better bites on smallies, in a few weeks? I know its much better in late april and early may but for like a dozen bigger smallies, 2 too 3 pounders a day when do these numbers start showing up.
Early season smallie fishing has always been a quality over quantity deal for me and I’ve never really run into numbers until late April – early May…. but I really don’t focus much time on them this time of year either. You may want to bounce this question off of John Stears, Blue Fleck or Jeremy Crawford to get their take on this but in my mind those first couple weeks in April are just a little early for numbers of average smallies but you will have a decent shot at a hawg if you know where to look.
I thought the water temps the last two weeks of april and the first two of may was the ticket, thanks James.
I’d be interested in a “bass guy’s” take on that question myself.
Hey Dustin… post the pic of your trout when you get home… smallie too. I want to see how that trout shot turned out.
Ya’ don’t catch one of those every day.
Guys,
My home computer died so I’m late to respond (doing this on work time).
My best way to gage the start of a consistent smallie bite is when the ice goes off the lower end of Lake Pepin. A few years back that was early March, this year may be mid April. 
Pepin is a huge heat sink so once the sun hits the surface the water temp rises into the 40 in a hurry. The fish are on the bank within days and the bite begins (jerkbait time) 
. Afternoons are best for numbers and size. Go poke around and they will let you know where they are.
My early season experience below the dams are about the same as James. One-here-one-there till the backwaters open. It will be interesting to see how this spring plays out with the late start.
Hey James!!!
Looking forward to sticking some of those fat pike tomorrow!!!
It is going to be a looooooooooooooooooong day at work today!!!!!!!!
Here is the big smallie I took. This fish was extremley shallow. Caught on an oyster shell ringie
Here is the picture of the trout. He took a pro-blue ringworm on a 1/8oz precision head. This fish was right up on the bank and just in-haled my ringworm once it hit the water. This fish put up a really good fight. Thought I had a big mama eye right at first until it started running circles around the boat
Here is another one of those
fat slimers James brought to the boat. We had 6 pike for the day, this was the best one that made it in the boat. This fish came on a firecracker ringworm.
Sweeeeeet!
You guys say multi-specie you mean it! 
Very cool
Nice pictures and report guys!
Nice smallie plus the colors in it are beautiful, a guy might think they would be lighter in color after winter. Nice brown too.
Nice fish Dustin!!!
I did’nt know you could catch swamptrout. They are a little harder to catch than the eyes you fish for, aren’t they. 
Well here’s our pike report from Tuesday for anyone interested in chasing these fun fish….
The bite was a bit off. We’d been seeing better numbers of late but we did manage one super nice fish and I did get cut off on another. Small plastics got the nod over larger baits. Gary and Al tried to throw some more traditional pike offerings but in this cold water the 4″ ringworms I was fishing got the nod. Look for slack water areas with fallen trees in the water to be the spots to target. If you’re catching crappies the pike aren’t far off. When the crappies stop biting the pike are on the prowl.
And while Gary didn’t get a big pike to the boat he did get this instead.
She weighed in at 9.7 lbs and was released after the shot. We had a super day of walleye fishing with our quality of fish being pretty darn awesome with all but three of our walleyes for the day over 20″ with the majority in that 20.5″ – 22″ range. We tried hair jigs and some big grubs but the fish wanted 4″ firecacker, oystershell and pro blue ring worms on 3/16ths ounce heads most of the day. We’re finding fish rather scattered yet so covering water vs. sitting it out on one spot to be the more productive strategy right now.
I take it this must have been the “30incher” people were talking about up by the dam?? Those are some nice fish! Maybe Friday….It is supposed to be Good Friday….hope that means for me too!
I don’t think so. Maybe? It wasn’t 30″ but we all know how stories get circulated on the water.
Yeah I know how the stories start. That was the first thing I heard about was the 30″er. When I got off the water some guy told me that he had and a couple of the guys in the boat caught 100+ fish yesterday. I saw them up at the dam and saw them catch one…Hmmmmmm
Coupla nice fish there!! I for one am happy to see the pike making a comeback on the river.
Hows the water clarity down there?
It’s excellent for this time of year. The water has come up very little so far.
Hey James!
Great day on the water yesterday!!!!
I sure can’t complain for the first walleye of the day being that pig!!!!!! It sure was cool hooking her while pitching ringworms!
We had a great day with a lot of quality fish! The crappies were really nice sized too!!! Some of those were an honest 12″, creaming ringworms!!! Go figure!!!!!!!
The walleye was only about 28″……… So, there may have been another fish in the 30″ range caught!
Maybe next time with the pike…..I’ll be a little more prepaired too with the “right baits”
I think some lightly weighted jerkshads or sluggo style baits might work well too…. especially if there’s no wind. It was nice to try the bigger pike baits just as a comparison as it really says a lot about their activity level right now.
James, is your pitching bite lasting into the day or is it just an early morning thing. Nices fishes by the way.
Yup… all through the day. Recently the more sun we get the better.
Sounds good, thanks. Heading down on Sat. I think. I’m thinking crowds but my cousin can’t get off work and wants to go so it’s the only time. After that, heading up to Rainy R. on Tues. Yee haa