The Open Water Season is Finally Here!
We spent the 2022 Minnesota Fishing Opener on Lake Mille Lacs at our favorite resort on the lake that we have been going to for many years now, Castaways. Great people and always a ton of fun!
As we waited for the clock to strike midnight, we scouted out the area we planned to start in, marking several walleyes on the side imaging. It was going to be a banner night of landing walleyes!
2:15am: Not a single walleye
We continued to mark them on the side imaging, but they were just not wanting to bite – switching up our cranks several times, trolling between 7-10ft in warmer waters (around 54 degrees) on the North end shoreline.
2:30am: Fish On!
With the water temps still pretty cool, we shot further down the shoreline on the Northside, away from the boats that were starting to crowd in and found some warmer water (around 58 degrees) and started trolling in 8ft. Finally, we landed the first one of the night! Not long after, we picked up a couple more.
When the sun began to rise, we switched over to snap jigging – again, not much luck in the early morning hours. Brett landed a nice 23in walleye but nothing to write home about after that.
Frustrated but determined, we decided to head in to make a new game plan and let some boats clear off the lake before heading back out.
New Plan
We changed up our strategy and it paid off:
Depth Change: 5-6ft
Slab Raps
Shallow Diving Husky Jerks (pictured below)
RAPALA | ORIGINAL FLOATER F11
(Find them HERE)
We used a slow presentation with slab raps throughout the late afternoon and evening hours.
When the sun went down, we switched over to trolling husky jerks in 5ft.
That afternoon and evening was very productive for us as we managed to land a number of walleyes in those few hours.
In the end, I would call our 2022 MN Fishing Opener a successful one!
BONUS PIKE
We don’t typically target Northerns, but this is a fish to appreciate!
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