2020 MN Fishing opener reports

Let’s hear how you folks are doing for the first week’s opener. Anyone pulling all nighter‘s after the stroke of midnight? Red tips freezing up?

My fellow cheeseheads are welcome to report in as well

Good luck ya’ll. I’m sitting this weekend out like normal but should be hitting it up next weekend…once the fishing reports come in. LOL

Couple inches of snow up north, got a few hours in on the water then it turned into a $#$@ show….

Was out from 6am until about 2:30. 55deg water temp. Lost a keeper at the boat in the first 20min and nothing but a couple bass after that. 35 or so boats on an 800 acre lake and saw nets out 2 or 3 times. Tried anywhere from 1 to 16fow with jig/minnow, jig/plastic, crankbaits, and leech on a lindy. This lake is normally good for at least some unders. I’m blaming it on the weather.

Yea not good for me . Two small walleye and a handful of hammer handles. Pretty slow for the Mississippi in town here. I did find two Muskie lures and a little pike gave me a new rappala.

My brother and kids got skunked on a local lake. Didn’t see any catching either.

My best friend up on the iron range limited out along with lots of throw backs. Said he got them shallow.

I seen a pictures of a walleye limit from red lake. And 3 walleyes and 2 pike from Norway lake in kadyohia county

Also heard a report from bowstring lake. One guy got his limit in a couple hours, the next boat got skunked.

One big pike and a sunfish on Forest Lake. Didn’t mark many fish at all. Lake sure has a lot of weeds on the bottom.

Was out on tonka around 4:30, beautiful morning really, just a touch chilly, I’ve had worse openers. Lots of un targeted bass from 10″-19″, couple rock bass, 1 19.75″ walleye. Home by noon. Hopefully get out this Tuesday or early the following week.

My boss rented a cabin on winnibigoshish he and his family caught four walleye. He had buddies on red that weren’t doing good either.

We did really well again. We had 75 walleye and kept 33 for lunch, 15″-18″. Most were caught on minnows.

Joe Scegura wrote:

We did really well again. We had 75 <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye and kept 33 for lunch, 15″-18″. Most were caught on minnows.

Now thats the kind of social “distancing” I like to see! Good work Joe!

Midnight was ok, moon was beautiful. Morning bite kinda sucked but still managed some bass.

Grabbed the waders and headed for the river earlier tonight. Freaking epic.

We fished midnight to 1 pm on mille lacs and the bite was on fire. Couldn’t keep o the eyes off. By 1 am we had 15 fish by noon id say close to 80

Hit the River North of Sartell and caught some smallies and northern with old man in AM. In the afternoon took my two girls out and caught some rainbows. Rainbows were biting and provided some good entertainment.

Joe Scegura wrote:

We did really well again. We had 75 <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye and kept 33 for lunch, 15″-18″. Most were caught on minnows.

Nice work Joe. Yea I’d say you did well.

Crushed the bass. Had two doubles which both included 4 lbers. Really fun morning! I was really shocked to find them on shallow wood. Figured they’d be staging on shallow weedlines with the cold weather but they were up in the thick stuff.

Deuces wrote:

Midnight was ok, moon was beautiful. Morning bite kinda sucked but still managed some bass.

Grabbed the waders and headed for the river earlier tonight. Freaking epic.

I need more details! Do tell.

Two boat crew went up to Leech this weekend. The first boat said the midnight trolling was hot up at leech. 3 guys in one boat limited out in 3 hours. Everything was between 16″-22″ with a 27 1/2″ in there as well.

Our boat didn’t do the midnight fish and opted to go out early in the morning (bad idea). We put 4 total in the from 5am-6pm (16″,18″,19″ and 29″). The 29 was caught at about 5:30 dragging a jig and a minnow near Pine Point.

All in all it was fun to get back out there but the snow and temps made for some trying fishing.

28″ was the biggest! No small fish, all over 22″, it wasn’t a ton of fish but they were all high quality!

Feathers wrote:

We limited out right away on Mille lacs.

Ha! We limited out on mille lacs too, and we were on tonka.

Feathers wrote:

We limited out right away on Mille lacs.

That’s funny right there,I don’t care who you are

My parents were on Mille Lacs and this is what their boat looked like when they left at 2:30pm. They limited out and did not have a single bite in about 5.5 hours. I told them to stay home and they still went.

How would you not get a bite on mille lacs? Were they using leadcore in the basin at 3mph?

I was out attempting to chase smallies on the Rum. Was a really slow day for me. One snake pike and a halfway decent smallie for 5 hours of trying. Granted the river has really changed in the last two years which makes it fun. Probably going to let the river warmup and wait tell the smallmouth are in a more summer pattern so i know more what I am doing with that. Only pulled one fish off of timber which is usually really hot. Granted thats more of a summer pattern. Time to fish some docks on lakes now though

Dusty Gesinger wrote:

How would you not get a bite on mille lacs? Were they using leadcore in the basin at 3mph?

I am not sure what they were doing. They usually lindy rig, lead core, or pull spinners as their primary tactics. It does not surprise me that the fishing was so poor based on those conditions. I told them not to go and they still went too. Its not as if they are completely clueless either. They fish regularly on the MTT tour on various lakes in the state every season. Maybe the fact that they both said that their fingers froze had something to do with it haha

Didn’t see another boat on the water. Fishing wasn’t fast but a great day with my daughter.

Great pic!

gimruis wrote:

My parents were on Mille Lacs and this is what their boat looked like when they left at 2:30pm. They limited out and did not have a single bite in about 5.5 hours. I told them to stay home and they still went.

Fished before and after the storm on the Pond. Was definitely cold and wet. Had no problem catching fish however. Found fish all over the first break and stayed away from other boats.

Did not get out until almost 10:00 AM on North side of Mille Lacs. Caught 4 walleyes in about 30 minutes of fishing, after three the the wife asked if we catch 1 more can we go in? I said sure. She said good, I got one. It was getting pretty slushy in the bottom of the boat.