Grindstone

[KG243]

Anyone heading up to grindstone for opener?

[Will]

a buddy and i are heading up there at o'dark forty saturday morning. we learned alot about the lake this past winter. i have never fished the open water up there before, we are pretty pumped for it. i am a little worried about the launch though, my bud checked it out last week and said it is pretty shallow. i have a 16&1/2 ft alumacraft and hopefully we can make it work. good luck out there.

[Pigeye79]

I made it out in my 16' all last year, so you should be good. Are you going out for lakers or stream trout?

[leech~~]

Will, I have fished the lake for years winter and summer and have never got a Walleye or Pike out of it. Why are you going to more or less a Trout lake on Walleye opener? To each his own I guess? Good luck!

[Will]

We are going for both lakers and rainbows. I do alot of walleye fishing throughout the year, so opener for me means trout. Last weekend walleyes/saugers on the croix, next weekend, crappies and eyes on upper red.

[Pigeye79]

Any good tips for Lakers? I've got all the equipment(downrigers etc...) I went up a few times last year and really could not get them figured out.

[Will]

We are going to troll and vertical jig over a bunch of spots that i marked on the gps over the winter. There are some humps on the east side about mid lake that would be a good starting point. I am going to try inline downriggers with dodgers and spoons, stick baits and cranks. Jigging i like white tubes and airplanes with a hunk of meat. I know early in the year lakers will cruise shallower water, so who knows.

[Pigeye79]

Are you trying to find baitfish or are you strictly fishing structure?

[Will]

Structure. I don't know what kind of baitfish are in there besides smelt, and i found those everywhere out there this winter.

[Pigeye79]

Let me know how you do. I probably not going to make it out this weekend but maybe Friday next week. I will post any results good or bad.

[Will]

Sounds good.

[KG243]

You should not have problem getting your boat out, we have no issues getting a 22' pontoon out. I have been told that trooling with a deep diving rap works good. THey are still pretty shallow as the level of disilved oxygen is still pretty high in the water colum. Good luck guys, I will be out during the week.

[Gold Fan]

Ive been thinking about trying Raps or spinners behind planer boards. I think if you work the shoreline with them it might work well. The only lakers I've caught on Grindstone were on orange Rap's in 10-15 feet of water. If I remember correctly it was about the second week of the season. Has anyone tried boards on Grindstone?

[KG243]

How did everyone do?

[Will]

Did great on the bows and browns. No success with the lakers, did not try too hard, we had too much fun chasing the others. I heard someone talking about a five lb laker that they caught.