Brainerd area walleye opener 2008

Another walleye opener has come and gone. I look forward to this every year meeting up with friends at Lost Lake Lodge on Gull Lake. As is the ritual, I spend Friday chasing crappies on a local lake while the other guys chase a little white ball through the woods. (I just never got into that.) The crappie fishing was some of the best I have had. Water temps were about 45 and weed growth was minimal. The weather was perfect with mostly sunny skies and no wind. The water was so clear that I could see clearly down to 10′. There wasn’t any fish crusing the shallow water, but once I got out to about 8′ I started seeing fresh weed growth, and that’s where the fish were. Not only the crappies, but both largemouth and smallmouth bass, northern pike, walleyes, dogfish and bullheads. The crappies prefered a pink and white Flu Flu tipped with a large crappie minnow under a bobber. Most all the fish were in the 12″ range with the biggest just over 14″. 3 hours of fishing produced roughly 30 crappies, a dozen bass and 2 pike. While cleaning the crappies I noticed that they all seemed to have quite full stomachs. Obviously these fish are putting on the feed bag.

Saturday morning found the gang hitting the water about 7. All 7 boats headed out looking for the elusive walleye. The water temp in the north lakes was 54 while main lake was 46. It was a bit of a struggle in the morning, but we managed a mix of perch, pike and walleyes. After a brief break for lunch we headed back out and had better luck on the walleyes, even though rain made it rather miserable for those without good rain gear. The walleyes we caught came while Lindy rigging minnows. The fish were just picking up the bait and all you would feel was dead weight. Fireline as a main line and the new Trilene 100% Flouro as the leader helped feel those light bites. Shiners caught the bigger fish, but rainbows got more numbers. In the morning the fish were on the weedlines and out to 16′ while during the rain we did better in 8′ in the new green weeds. The Lakemaster chip helped a ton as the weedline fish were holding on inside turns and we were able to run from spot to spot instead of trying to find those turns.

The crappies were biting quite well on Gull as well. Crappie minnows on a plain hook in 6′ of water seemed best. The ‘gils were taking the minnows as well, but preferred waxxies or a piece of crawler.