Let The Good Times Roll

My spring fishing update is a bit overdue as things have been really busy around here since getting back from turkey hunting.  My guiding work is in full swing and the days are flying by.  

Overall fishing has been excellent, despite the non-typical weather patterns we've had this year.  The ice went out really early and since then we've had everything from seasonal weather to the extremes of heat and cold.  It snowed in Sioux Lookout on May 29th and now less than a week later it feels like summer.  


If I could generalize the effect on the fishing, I would say the fish are more scattered than usual.  Recently, I've caught walleye as deep as 34-feet and as shallow as 4-feet, and everywhere in between.  Everyday is different and most patterns don't last very long.  

Despite this, the catching has been very good.  Most of my walleye are being caught out of 15-feet of water, give or take.  The bigger fish, however, seem to be in 15-plus feet.  Another pattern that is producing is the may-fly larva pattern.  During sunny afternoons when the shallow water heats up, the walleye move into shallow bays to gorge on may-fly larva.  It's one of my favourite patterns of the year - catching lots of walleye, and big ones too, out of 4-8 feet-of-water.  

Here's one of my guests, Bob, with a typical Lac-Seul over slot walleye.  

Bob and Mike toughed it out through some of the worst conditions - cold, wet and wind - but we caught a lot of fish!  

Not long after they left, the weather got warm (sorry guys!) and the fish kept biting.  Here's a nice one that I caught out of 18-feet on a Lindy jig tipped with a minnow.  

The pike fishing has been kind of hit-or-miss lately but I have to show off this P-I-G I caught earlier in the season.  

I also had a chance to spend 3 days in my boat with my good buddy Mike Battistoni hunting for big lakers on Minnitaki Lake.  Minnitaki is known for trophy lake trout, but it's not a 'numbers' lake by any means.  We were hoping for a couple of big-bigs but it didn't happen on this trip.  The laker bite was tough and we only boated 1 fish.  We covered a lot of water trolling with planer boards, dipsey divers and long-lines.  We also jigged deeper areas but couldn't get on a big laker.

Here's Mike with our one-and-only lake trout.

Since I didn't get to 'scratch my lake trout itch' I hit up Big Vermilion for some jig fishing recently.  The action was much better and we boated a lot of lakers jigging with white tube jigs.  We caught fish from 35-feet down to 70-feet.  Here's one of the better fish from the day.  

Since I got home from turkey hunting I put together this video.  Check it out - I think it turned out pretty well.  

Coming up - a lot more fishing!  I'm really looking forward to muskie opener on June 16th.  

Also, the Johnson Outdoors santa arrived and I can't wait to rig my boat up with a Minn Kota Terrova with I-Pilot and Humminbird 898CX Side Imaging combo, plus a 788 HD combo on the bow.