Selective Walleye on Michigan opener

Sunday was the Michigan walleye opener and I headed for Gladstone, Mich in the predawn darkness…full of anticipipation.It would be a cold, rainy, blustery day but nevertheless Frank Pearson, Larry Theil and I hitched up my trusty Crestliner and headed the 57 miles to the bay.
I knew many boats would be pounding the three prominent reefs out there so we opted to stay away from the crowds and using my electronics, find some walleyes to work on.
I had alot of confidence in the new Lowrance 332 GPS combo I had recently purchased from JollyAnn Sales on this website. To our surprise the first pod of fish showed up in 35 feet of water. Larry and I opted to drop 3/8 oz jigs tipped with a 1/2 crawler to drag…but Frank lowered a Lindy rig w a Flo hooked crawler…soon Frank’s 6’9″ St. Croix was bent and throbbing with a nice 24″ spawned out lady.

As we drifted deeper into the main basin the screen lit up with lots of little “hooks” near the bottom. The wind was really picking up and dictating even bigger jigs…those non agressive fish were not interested in that so I opted to reduce my line diameter to be able to downsize by jig to a 1/4 oz. Bingo! I put three nice fish in the boat in the boat in the next few minutes…the largest smacking a BFT purple/white tail ringworm and hand painted H20 jig in 32′ of water! The wind switched to the north and temps dropped dramatically as the day wound down and the bite completely died. We didn’t put very many in the box but knew ther were a LOT of eyes down there if we could only figure em out.

Tuesday I headed back with former PWT regular Al Erickson…the “jigmaster”. We poured over the Hotspots chip in my GPS and decided that the walleye must be approached with great finesse. While 100s of boats trolled and drifted by…we deftly vertical jigged 4# test of light rods in 35-40′ of water where we marked lots of fish…and put lots of walleyes in the boat. Those fish were a ball on the light tackle! I am growing very fond of my St Croix 6’9″ MedLight XFast rod. It has a very sensitve tip section yet loads up fast for good hooksets. I had no problem setting hooks with 1/8 oz jigs on 4# test in 30+ feet of water. The length gives additional leverage and fish fighting capabilities. We each had a limit of nice 16-18″ eaters and headed home as the rains pelted down…cold and wet but very satisfied.

I had an off day on Thursday so I headed back to the Bay by myself to try some different things and play with the walleyes some more. I still found few fish in the “normal” shallow water areas. The water temps were up to 52 degrees and winds were 12 mph out of the South so I figured the fish may have been pushed up to the North end of the Bay. I guessed right…my first jig drop was greeted with a strong tug and we were back in business! Most of the fish were smaller males but I managed to put five nice eaters on ice including a 19 incher on the “last cast”.
All in all it looks like the last three to four good spawning springs have paid some good benefits. The bite is pretty tough right now but with a little finesse one can still have some good action on the Bays de Noc!