After two months of open water waiting to start chasing ‘ol Marble Eyes, I’m thrilled the MN Walleye Opener has finally arrived! We opened on Mille Lacs and what a great weekend to be on the water! On Saturday, we started out in the traditional North sand spots as did thousands of other anglers. Fish were being caught in 18-23 foot depths, with most people live bait rigging with leeches. We started with this tactic as well, trying to avoid the large flotillas and attempted to find fish on the outskirts away from heavy boat traffic. Fishing was pretty slow for us as we only boated 4 walleyes in the morning ranging from 19-22 inches. At noon, we decided to buck the trend and see what was happening out on the northern mud flats. The fish weren’t stacked out there like they will be in a few weeks but we did mark a few promising areas so decided to deploy spinners and give it a try. This was a good move as we had steady action the rest of the day, hopping around to a few spots we scouted and ended up putting another 20 fish in the boat. Most were in the 20-23 inch range, but we did manage a couple slots for dinner and a nice 28.5 incher.
On Sunday, we hit some western mud flats and found similar action as Saturday afternoon. Plenty of nice fish in that 20-26 inch range plus we got a few more eaters for a fresh Walleye dinner this week. Depth seemed to vary. When scouting a flat, I’ll usually cruise over it first and identify if the fish seem to be hanging higher or lower. This weekend there was a mix of fish on top right on the edge and down the slopes a bit, so we just back trolled up and down which worked pretty well. The best spinner patterns this week were Jolly Roger Pro Series Firebelly, Purple Haze and Sunrise Craw.
