Well, Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, and now we find ourselves in that first real week of “summer” fishing. The weekend itself brought the beginning of yet another welcome warm-up, and this kind of warmth, even with clouds, is exactly what we need. If you were out over the holiday weekend, you probably found water temps climbing on your favorite lakes. That’s the trend we’ve been waiting for. Heading into the week, we’re looking at a real heat-up, and that will change those temps quickly and get us right to where we should be for this time of the year.
Walleye have continued their transition away from the shallows, and are now setting up along weed edges and transition areas in the 8 to 14 foot range on most lakes. …
We’re right at that in-between stretch, past the excitement of the Opener but not yet into the summer grind – and the fishing is just starting to find its footing. Our temperatures have not helped, as they’ve been a rollercoaster. And that wind! That wind has been as much or more of an issue than the temperatures!
As of this writing, a warmup starting later in the week looks mildly promising. We need it to help push water temperatures in the right direction, as right now things have kind of stalled out. Some of the big lakes up North still have readings in the upper 40’s, the Chain has been stuck in the low-50’s, and if you’re on a small lake, …
The opener is behind us and the lakes are settling into their quiet rhythms. Traffic at the landings has eased and there’s plenty of room to breathe on the water. It’s a good week to get out, and hopefully the weather will begin to cooperate. We’ve got only a couple more weeks left until summer season gets serious!
Walleye are done with the spawn and are starting to move toward emerging weed edges to feed. Action for them has been decent, but not great. The shallows are still worth fishing, particularly rocky and gravelly structure in 4 to 10 feet, and the evening low-light bite remains reliable. Jigs with fatheads or Lindy rigs with crawlers, fished slow and near the bottom will do. …
What an opening weekend we had up here! The Chain was in good shape, the landings saw traffic at first light, and there were plenty of happy anglers moving around by mid-morning. With the cold start, we saw a lot of lake-hopping as the water temperatures varied from lake to lake so much this year. While the bigger, colder lakes to the north were seeing temperatures that still sat in the 40’s, places like the chain had water in the mid-50’s. Regardless, we had beautiful, sunny weather for the weekend.
The opener brought the typical excitement around walleye, and for the most part, they didn’t disappoint too much. Most of the action was in the shallows — 4 – 10’ — on rocky and gravelly shorelines where the fish had been staging. …