McGregor Area Opener

Well it was a wet one as everyone knows, but it was still better weather than last years opener for us. I spent the opener on a McGregor area lake. The fishing overall was good to very good. With a slow Saturday morning, things really heated up for us Saturday night. I spent the opener with 2 of my buddies (Chris and Jason) and 2 of my brothers (Rich & Ron) joined us Saturday evening. With a late start Saturday morning after a few of us experiencing a 3.2 flu, the 3 of us only boated one 17” eye in the 2.5 hours we fished. The fish were spread out and after spending a few hours targeting the fish that I was marking in 4-8 feet of water and not getting a bite. I made one pass out deeper off the first break and we quickly boated a nice 17”er in 14 feet of water. With one guy looking really green, we retreated back to the cabin for some cover, rest and much needed food.

Saturday evening however was a different story. As soon as the rain let up, someone flipped the switch and the feed bags were “ON” for the walleyes. Once we got bit we stayed working a certain stretch that was gravel /sand transition area in 6-8 feet of water, that happened to occur on an inside corner. So it was the common phrase we hear of a “spot on a spot” that was holding these walleyes. We were rigging 8’ snell’s with black and red hooks and ¼ oz. jigs through this 50 foot stretch and picking up fish just about every pass once it started. Crawlers seemed to be the preferred bait, but leeches were taking fish also. I was trying to stay below .5 mph on this controlled drift/back troll. This seemed to be the ticket spot, speed and location. My brother Ron was working a single hook crawler rig and was not giving the fish any line, what so ever. He would feel the bite put his rod tip forward and set the hook. These fish were on the chew and ’ing what we were giving them. We landed a lot of fish during this “hot” bite but also missed a few at the boat that came off. This “hot” bite lasted for about and hour and a half and slowly died off to just a few fish, so we headed in for the evening. The bite could have died because we ran out of crawlers.

Sunday consisted of getting some things done up at the cabin and not much fishing. We were able to make it out around 11 am for 2 hours. After quickly trying to locate some fish rigging we switched to pulling cranks. The amount of small perch we were catching on Saturday got me to thinking we should try pulling cranks through these areas. If you could keep the Northern off this would have probably worked. Pulling cranks only provided on keeper walleye, a bunch of little hammer handles and the “Hot stick of the weekend Jason pulled a beauty 8 lb northern. The lake was not as busy as years passed and that was just fine by me. Maybe it was the weather, but we will take it.

It was great to see the lake with so many nice sized fish and seemingly in the best shape I have seen it in my 12 years fishing it. The fish seemed to be in 6-8 feet of water and the areas we concentrated on were sand gravel locations. Although many walleye are typically taken around weed breaks on this lake, we did not try these locations. Nothing humungous came to the boat for us, but many decent (16"-22") fish came to our boat this weekend. It was only a few years back when I hammered them Memorial day weekend on this lake. The only problem was that these fish were 10-14 inches. Those strong year classes are all grown up now. It was nice seeing you again Chad, we will have to get together sometime this Summer for some fishing and . I will be focusing the next month primarily on Mille Lacs for 5 different tournaments ranging from the MTT’s, Cemstone, to the Wave Wacker. I’m excited to get down to the pond and start boating some fish. It was nice seeing everyone that I did on Sunday afternoon after the Big D weigh in. Until next weekend everyone have a safe time on the water. Calvin you better have your ‘in shoes on this wekeend.

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