How Was Your Opener? Pics? Video?

[Rick]

How did it go for you?

[Wanderer]

S-L-O-W...  Fished the river a few hours on Saturday, boating 3 smallies.  Didn’t have a depth finder/temp gauge so I don’t know how cold the water is.

 

Just got back from a small local lake.  1 bass boated and 4 fish shook off the shadow rap.   No panfish either.

 

Got checked by the Warden; he said he had checked 7 lakes yesterday and was probably gonna knock for today since no one has had fish in the box.

 

Any luck for you @Rick?

[Bucketcastle]

Went well on big winnie considering I've never been there (don't KNOW the lake).  Lots of boats on the west side of the lake little Pike and some descent size walleye.  We were drift fishing over the bay.  I was using a few heavy sinkers 2 ft above a chartreuse floating jig with shiners.

[ozzie]

I was out on the Whitefish Chain...windy and tried the Pine river mouth and in front of the mouth and didn't catch or see anything caught.  Always tough to figure out the eyes on the chain in the month of May.  The crappies were a little more active when found.  Had a verbal altercation on Friday evening fishing crappies with my 10 year old son and my father in-law...that was awesome!  We were catching some fish between a dock and boat lift when I made a bad cast.  I hate leaving hooks on peoples lifts so I noticed our boat was close to the dock so reluctantly I got on the dock and walked up to the lift and my line broke.  I could not grab my stuff from the lift so I needed to get back into the boat to retrieve the items.  A guy holding a beer just pulled up on a golf cart and says "hope you are gonna get on the lift and get that off!"  I told him I could not reach from the lift and started back to the boat.  He then gets mad and says "so now you are going to leave?"  I turned and told him I haven't left.  The next thing you know he tells me to get off his private property and his intoxicated women with him started yelling F-bombs and getting all higher than thou saying I don't even live up there and I use the public landing and this is their dock, lift, and bay and I should not fish around their stuff...needless to say I had had enough of their verbal abuse so when I jumped into my boat I pulled up the anchor and floated to the lift and let the jerk and his trashy girl have it!  I went off on them letting know I made one mistake, tried to correct it, and then ended up dealing with 2 irrational idiots!!!!  They threatened me with calling the cops which I was all for since they were operating the golf cart with alcohol on a public road.  I floated in the bay hoping a cop would show up but unfortunately they did not.  Oh well what can you do...I know I made the mistake of getting on the dock in the first place but I was trying to do the right thing and they even wanted me to get my stuff off their lift but after that the alcohol got in their way of thinking straight and things went off the rails.  Sucked my son and other kids fishing in the bay had to see and hear that but people are crazy as I often tell my son.  Hope everyones opener was filled with action other than altercations with people!  

[Mike89]

people..............  sounds like ya done good...........

[Bucketcastle]

@ozzie, good work keeping your composure, drunken idiots like that are hard to deal with.  That is one of those situations that can ruin the mood of a fishing trip.  Hope your next trip goes better.  

[Wanderer]

^^^^^ What they said. ^^^^^^

 

Keep your cool, try to do the right thing, be as considerate as possible.  But know your rights and their rights (sounds like you do!).  

[leech~~]

I will have to say as a boat lift owner. Having a few $1,000 dollar boat lift canopy snagged and ripped by someones carelessness with their few dollar lure can set folks off and ruin their day up at the lake!    

[gim]

I am not on the lake property owner side of this but I can say with 100% positivity that I would be livid about people snagging personal property on and around my dock. I often bass fish around docks in the summer and if there is anyone physically present on the dock or in the yard, etc, I don’t fish it. I just move on to the next one. Situations like this make me consider avoiding the immediate area around docks altogether though.

[brittman]

Slow Saturday, but solid & fun Sunday morning.  We were not on a walleye lake.   Really nice size northerns and bass hit our casting spoons and crank baits.  

 

Searched our known crappie spots that have worked well in the past.  Nothing from 17' to shallow on Saturday evening.   Surprising actually.   No fish really marked either on the locator.

[ozzie]

17 hours ago, leech~~ said:

I will have to say as a boat lift owner. Having a few $1,000 dollar boat lift canopy snagged and ripped by someones carelessness with their few dollar lure can set folks off and ruin their day up at the lake!    

 

I agree with you on this and I have never snagged a canopy or ever seen that happen not to say it can't or doesn't.  This particular lift was bare...no canopy on it, no boat on it and it was raised out of the water so if you were to tangle in the bunks you could retrieve and not leave any hooks on his lift.  I get the boat, boat lift, or dock owners side of things but in this particular case the guy was just trying to be macho and realized he wasn't gonna get someone that was going to cower to his assertive behavior.  And for ripping up a canopy isn't happening with the 1/16oz hook with a bobber but more likely happening with bass fishing dock flippers using heavier line and lures...I promise my line would break before it could rip a canopy.  Just sayin.

 

Back on the subject of fishing...anyone else find the crappies to be on the first break over the weekend opposed to up in the shallower (3' or less) water?  My son and I found a school of crappies in our bay that we have a dock slip in but then he fell in the lake and our fishing was done for the day.  He learned a good lesson about being aware of what you are doing in your surroundings.  This school was very small and not easily fished but they were all located in the deeper sections of the docks which fit into what we saw in the other portions of the lake system on Saturday and Sunday that the fish were 4'-8' of water.

[ozzie]

and yes we had a adventurous weekend of fishing. 

Edited May 14, 2019 by ozzie

[Harv]

Was on Basswood out of Ely; 5 of us limited out .  Lots of boats.

[BobT]

Was up on Vermilion. We struggled to find any pattern to the walleyes. I suspect they were still spawning with the surface temps at about 44 degrees. On Friday evening we shined a flashlight in the water and could see hundreds of big walleyes in there. 

 

Caught a couple in the 25" range but otherwise most were males in the 13" - 14" range with 99% of them found in 25' to 30' of water. I suspect it will be better starting next week.

[gim]

I have been finding some nice crappies on Lake Minnetonka the past couple weekends.  They have been hanging around the most prominent weed growth in 4-7 feet of water that I marked on my GPS.  Most of them have been in the 10-12 inch range which is pretty good for the metro.  We did manage to catch 3 over 12 inches last weekend.  I released most of them fully alive.

Edited May 17, 2019 by gimruis

[PRO-V]

Good times and pretty good weather at LotW. Plenty of fish. Here's some of my better ones.

[smurfy]

nice fish ProV!!!!!!!!!! I see your running a yammy!!!!!!!!! that looks a lot like my lund 1600 stringer boat!!!! yours looks a tad more fancy though!!!!!!!!! 

[PRO-V]

Believe it or not it's a 1993 1660 ProV with a 2 stroke Pro 60 Yamaha. Still runs like a champ. I'm starting to get to the age that it doesn't pay to get a new one. It's always stored in the garage unless we're on a trip.

[smurfy]

yea I keep thinking of getting a different motor but runs good. its a 40 Johnson. I am happy with the boat itself and don't plan on a different one either.

[fish_time]

This sums up my opener. Sorry for being so late. "If your happy and you know it, your face will surely show it! It must be the Minnesota fishing opener." Thank you for joining us on another fishing adventure. And what's more important than catching fish? Spending time with family and getting outdoors. 

 

[rumeye]

Looks like fun